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Correspondence 

OF 

John Quincy Adams, 
1811-1814 

EDITED BY 
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 



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pmeritan JUnliquarian ^txtxtlti 



Correspondence 

OF 

John Ouincy Adams, 
1811-1814 

EDITED BY 
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 



Repbinted fbom the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 

FOR April, 1913. 



WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A. 

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY 

1913 



^ 

^^\ 



PV 



THE DAVIS PRESS 

WOBCBSTEB, MASSACHnSETTS 



Gill 
Editor 

hi 15 1911 



CORRESPONDENCE OF 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 1811-1814 



In the year 1812 literally the whole world was at war. 
Beginning with the capture of the Bastille, June 14, 
1789, the convulsions which marked and followed the 
French Revolution of 1789, known as the Napoleonic 
wars, had entered upon their final phase in October, 
1812, when the retreat of the French army from Moscow 
began. That phase culminated at Waterloo thirty-tw^ 
months later, June 15, 1815. / ' 

For the United States the period was one of tension 
and humiUation. During it, disuinon was freely (agi- 
tated, and in 1814 steps preliminary to a secession of ^the 
New England States from the Union were taken. . [ 

James Madison was inaugurated as the fourth Presi- 
dent March 4, 1809. One of the earhest acts of Madikon 
after taking office had been to nominate John Quincy 
Adams to represent the United States at the court of 
St. Petersburg. Two years previously the Czar of Rus- 
sia, Alexander I, then thirty-five years old, had agreed 
with Napoleon to the Treaty of Tilsit, so-called, theatri- 
cally signed on a raft moored in the river Niemen, by 
virtue of which a temporary arrangement in the nature 
of a peace was brought about between the two poten- 
tates. Napoleon was then at the zenith of his career, 
and this treaty had been rudely broken by him in the 
summer of 1812. The disastrous Russian campaign and 
the War of 1812-15 between the United States and Great 
Britain were thus contemporaneous. The last named 
War came to a close at the end of 1814, [December 25th] 
less than six months before the battle of Waterloo. 

The residence of J. Q. Adams in Russia [1809-1814] 
covered the whole of the period of Napoleon's Russian 



experience, as also his campaign during the subsequent 
year, 1813, intervening between the retreat from Moscow 
and Waterloo. The official position held by Mr. Adams 
was consequently at the very center of conffict during 
the four most troubled years of the nineteenth century. 
Throughout that period there was a constant interchange 
of familiar family letters, so far as the facilities for such 
an interchange then existed, between St. Petersburg 
and Quincy, the home of the Adams family in Massa- 
chusetts. These letters, relating exclusively to events 
contemporaneously occurring in Russia and America 
and to characters now become historical, have never 
seen the light. The letter, for instance, from H. Q. 
Adams to his mother, Mrs. John Adams, describing a 
long interview with the famous Madame de Stael in 
St. Petersburg, was written on the day preceding that 
on which the great battle of Borodino was fought, — 
September 7, 1812. 

' In those exceptionally troubled times the transmission 
of letters between Europe and America, never either 
safe or rapid, was carried on under difficulties and 
restrictions now not easy to realize. In the first place, 
no real international mail service, in the modern sense of 
the term, then existed. In the second place, what is 
now known as post-office ^'sanctity" was systematically 
ignored. Letters, whether passing through the post or 
in private hands, were opened or subject to seizure by 
officials in nearly every country. To such a degree was 
this the case that in a letter written from St. Petersburg 
to his brother, Thomas Boylston Adams,^ J. Q. Adams 
observed: — ''Almost every letter I write is opened and 
read either by French or English officers. '' Letter- 
writing, therefore, had to be marked by a great degree 
of discretion. This is apparent in the letters of Mrs. 
John Adams to her son. In one of them, dated from 
Quincy, July 29, 1812, she says: — ''The declaration of 



» Thomas Boylston Adams, second son of John Adams, born in Braintree, Mass., Sep- 
tember 15, 1772, graduated at Harvard in the class of 1790, was a representative from 
Quincy in the General Court of Massachusetts, [1805-06] and Judge of the Court of Com- 
mon Pleas of Massachusetts [1809-11]. He died in Quincy, 12 March, 1832. Accom- 
panying his father to Europe a boy of seven, in 1779, he had been put to school in France 
and Holland. Returning to America in 1781, subsequently, when in 1794, J. Q. Adams 
was appointed minister at the Hague, T. B. Adams went wiih him in the capacity of 
Secretary of Legation. He returned to America in 1800. 



war by the United States against Great Britain, the 
necessity for which is deplored, renders the communi- 
cation between us so hazardous that I despair of hearing 
from you or conveying inteUigence to you. * * * 
We have not any letters from you of a later date than 
the 4th March, and we wait in anxious expectation of 
hearing. I have written to you by various opportuni- 
ties, and I could now fill many pages with subjects which 
ought to come to your knowledge of a political nature, 
if I did not feel myself restrained by the desire I have, 
that this letter may reach you, as it contains no subject 
to gratify the curiosity of any one and can be only in- 
teresting to yourself as a testimony of the health of your 
friends." And again, writing under date of November 
30th following, she says: — '^Your letters of April 30th, 
of May 28th, of June 27th, a duplicate which we could 
not read so faint was the press copy, and your letters of 
July 8th and August 10th have all safely arrived, the 
two last upon 19th of this month, and gave us the more 
pleasure, as we had despaired of hearing again from you 
during the winter. It is almost a forlorn hope to expect 
any communication between us. The war between 
France and Russia on the one hand, and America and 
England on the other, leaves few chances for private 
correspondence. If while peace existed so little regard 
was had to letters addrest to a publicke minister that 
they must be broken open and family and domesticke 
concerns become the subject of public investigation, 
there can be but little satisfaction in writing; notwith- 
standing that blundering Irish Lord Castlereigh denies 
the fact, I cannot expect more respect or civility when 
the nations are hostile to each other. Should this be 
destined to similar honor I request Sir William or any 
of their Lordships to awaken in their own Bosoms some 
natural affection and kindly forward this letter to the 
son to whom it is addrest, and whom three years absence 
from his parents and children render it particularly 
necessary that it should go with safety. '* 

J. Q. A. to Thomas Boylston Adams 

St. Petersburg, 31 July, 1811. 
***** ''The time is apparently coming when the 
temper and character of the American People will be tried by 



6 

a test to which since the War of our Revolution they have 
been strangers. And unfortunately the unparalleled pros- 
perity which for more than a quarter of a Century they have 
enjoyed has been constantly unfitting them from year to year 
for the reverse of Fortune which they now have to encounter. 
The school of afl&iction however is as necessary to form the 
moral character of Nations as of individuals. I hope that 
ours will be purified by it. The prospect of a War with Eng- 
land has been so long approaching us that we ought to have 
been better prepared for it than we are. It was to prevent 
this War, which I believed altogether otherwise unavoidable, 
that I assented to and voted for the Embargo when a member 
of the Senate. I hoped it would have saved us from the War; 
I have ever been convinced, and now believe more firmly than 
ever that it did save us from the War for that time, and post- 
poned it for four years. The same causes which would have 
produced it then are producing it now, and according to all 
appearance, if anything can possibly save us from it again, it 
will be another Embargo. 

Whether our Government will have the time or the incli- 
nation, or the resolution, to resort to this expedient I do not 
know — from the Accounts received here from England since 
the news of the encounter between the President Frigate 
and the Little Belt,^ measures appear to have been adopted 
there for the professed purpose of "humbling the Yankies" 
and a squadron of five ships of the line to be followed it is said 
by a Regiment of troops, has sailed for America with sealed 
orders to be opened West of Scilly. Their object will doubtless 
be known to you long before you receive this letter. Whether 
it be of mere menace or of direct hostility, I trust the Spirit of 
my Country will prove true to itself. But it opens in either 
case a prospect before us at least as formidable as that of 1775 
and 1776 was to our fathers. 

You tell me that you burnt a letter which you had written 
me, expressing perhaps too freely your opinions of certain late 
measures of our Government. Perhaps I ought to have burnt 
two letters which I wrote you expressing my opinions with 
regard to the non-intercourse or non-importation Act of the 
last Session of Congress. I do sincerely respect and honour 
the motives, and I fully approve the spirit of those by whom 
it was past. They had given a pledge by the Act of the former 
Session, which they thought themselves bound to redeem, and 
they might justly expect that France would carry into effect 



' The collision between the U. S. frigate President and the British corvette Little Belt 
had occurred off Cape Charles, Va., May 15, 1811, eleven weeka previous to the date of 
this letter. 



her engagements on her part so positively and explicitly stated 
by the Duke de Cadore.' But it was my opinion that France 
had already violated her own engagements in a manner which 
absolved us from all obligation contracted by the Act of the 
former Session, and I strongly apprehended that the tendency 
of the new Act would be to precipitate a War with England. 
The new incident which has occurred and upon which the 
accounts of the two parties differ so materially with regard to 
the facts undoubtedly increases the danger and seems to 
render the War unavoidable. If the War must come, I hope 
that the temper and the energy of the Government and People 
will rise to a dignity and firmness adapted to the emergency. 
So far as it may be defensive, I can only pray that as our day is, 
so our Strength may prove. But the first and most important 
quality for War in my estimation is Justice. And may God 
Almighty grant that we may be careful to keep that on our 
side. That we may not undertake it presumptuously, nor 
impelled by Passion; nor without a precise and definite object 
for which to contend. 

This state of affairs is also calculated to turn back my reflec- 
tions upon myself. It has led me to review my own public 
conduct in past time, and to consider my prospects and my 
duties for the future. You will already see that I find in it 
an additional justification to my own mind for the part I took 
in relation to our foreign Affairs during the last Session of 
Congress in which I held a Seat in the Senate. My principle 
was one which no result of Events could possibly shake. But 
in respect to policy, I always considered the Embargo as justi- 
fiable on no other ground than that its only alternative was 
War. This opinion from the necessity of the thing was con- 
jectural. It is even now not demonstrable that War would 
have followed without it; but if War comes from the same 
operative Causes, as I believed would have produced it then, 
I shall certainly consider my reasoning at that time as more 
completely sanctioned by the Events than I could if it should 
not ensue. 

Since my residence in Russia, our relations both with France 
and England have taken a variety of turns, and new incidents 
affecting them have occurr'd, but in which it has not been my 
duty to take any part. I have of course none of the respon- 
sibility connected with them upon me. I have had nothing 
English to guard against but forgery. My most difficult and 
important labours have been to struggle against another influ- 
ence. But let me tell you an anecdote. In the month of 



* Champagne, Jean Baptiste NompSre de, first Duo de Cadore. 1756-1834. Minis- 
ter of Foreign Affairs under the Empire, 1807-1811. 



8 

February last, I heard that there was an American Vessel, 
somewhere in the river Elbe, going shortly with a special per- 
mission from the French Government to Boston. Thinking 
this might be a good opportunity to write a private letter or 
two (I took special care not to send by that way any public 
ones) I wrote you on the 5th of March n. 12, and enclosed it 
together with a Duplicate of n. 11 under a cover directed to 
my father, and sent it by Post to Mr. Forbes at Hamburg, 
with a request that he would forward it by the first safe oppor- 
tunity to the United States. 

On the 26th of March Mr. Forbes wrote me that he had 
received my letter, and should send the enclosures by the Ship 
Packet Captain Hinkley; which was to sail for Boston in a very 
few days. I congratulated myself on having thus found one 
more chance of conveyance for my Winter letters and was 
indulging the hope that my number twelve had reached you 
at latest in June, untill about ten days since I received a sub- 
sequent letter from Mr. Forbes, informing me that a few days 
previous to the departure of Captain Hinkley at 7 O'clock in 
the Morning his bed chamber was entered by order of the 
Police, and all his letters amounting only to 7 or 8 were taken 
from him; and that my letter directed to my father was among 
them. Mr. Forbes made immediately a written application 
for the restoration of my letter, but was referred from the 
Police to the Post-Office, and from the Post-Office to the 
Police — but never obtained the letter. 

You may perhaps have thought me particularly cautious of 
writing you and my other friends at Quincy upon topics of 
political interest, and if you receive my letters n. 11 and 12, 
you may wonder what motive there could be, not for breaking 
them open, but for eluding the return of them. But I trust 
you will perceive that I have had sufficient reason for great 
reserve in writing politicks and that you will find some excuse 
for letters on subjects which might be thought too trifling for 
a man of my years and gravity." * * * 

J. Q. A. to Thomas Boylston Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 25 September, 1811. 
****** ^'The London Newspapers are usually 
from three to four weeks from their date in reaching this place. 
And they commonly contain one or more paragraphs of Public 
news from the United States which have got across the Atlantic 
in a similar interval of time. It is through this channel that 
we always receive the most recent intelligence from our Coun- 
try, though it sometimes comes to us through another second- 
ary medium by transfer into the French or German Gazettes, 



9 

which we regularly receive twice a week. They are seventeen 
days coming from Hamburg; and three weeks from Paris. 

It was in a London Paper, the Courier, that I first saw the 
political forgery, pretended to be a letter from the Duke of 
Cadore, which had originally been published in the Boston 
Patriot^ In addition to the original imposture, which though 
it first came from America, I hope and believe to have been of 
English origin, the Editor of the Courier trumped up a tale of 
its having been addressed to the Russian Ambassador at Paris 
— sent by him to the Emperor Alexander — communicated 
by the Russian Government to me, transmitted by me to my 
own Government, and to my father, through whom he says it 
was first published. And all this without hesitation or scruple 
— not as a conjecture given as probable — not as a report re- 
ceived from others, but as of unquestionable certainty and 
incontrovertible fact. I am perfectly sure that the assertion 
respecting my father is as false as all the rest, but it is utterly 
unaccountable to me how the Editor of the Patriot could 
have been made the dupe of what appears to me to be so clear 
an imposition. He says it bears the very image and super- 
scription of the modern Caesar — which only shows how little 
he is acquainted with that personage, and how open he has 
suffered his mind to the rank absurdities, and cunning misrep- 
resentations of Englishmen and anglified Americans. Ames 
tried to scare all our federal old women out of their senses by 
telling them with a grave face that he trembled for fear Bona- 
parte would take his and their children for a conscription 
against St. Domingo; and Walsh, with a little mincing of the 
matter, just enough to show that he does not believe a word of 
it, says that indeed he does not know but — he is no coward — 
but really there may be some danger of the conscription a- 
gainst St. Domingo. In all this however there is no forgery. 
Ames's fears raised a Spectre before his mind's eye, which he 
really believed he saw, and from which he started with a shriek 
of horror. Walsh affects to partake of his trepidation because 
he has his purposes to answer by spreading it among others — 
but the author of this spurious step advances one step further 
in the righteous Cause. Hobgoblins and prophecies are not 
highly seasoned enough for his palate. Plain, downright 
forgery, is his fashion of raising bugbears, and so he puts the 
Duke of Cadore's name to a jumble of materials as incongruous, 
and ridiculous as the composition of the Caldron of Macbeth's 
witches, the result of which is to be, that Bonaparte intends to 
destroy the English Constitution, and dethrone the house of 



* This frabication, a bitter tirade against Great Britain, appeared in the Boston Patriot 
of June 19, 1811, filling two and one-half columns of the issue of that date. 



10 

Hanover, and that he considers the United States, as ruled by 
the weakest and most contemptible of Governments. That such 
a wretched piece of Patch Work should have pass'd current 
for genuine among the profound wiseacres of the federal 
Gazettes, that Russell or Coleman'* should have taken or given 
it all out for Gospel would have been natural enough; but 
I really should never have suspected quite so much cullability 
in the Editor of the Paino^. " * * * * 

J, Q. A. to John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 29 June, 1812. 

******* It was but yesterday that the account of 
the first hostilities in Poland reached this City ;« no Event of 
importance is yet known to have occurred; but it is believed 
impossible that many days should pass without a shock such 
as perhaps is unparralleled even in the sanguinary modern 
annals of Europe. What this Event will be, human wisdom 
cannot foresee; but here it is a moment of profound and gloomy 
anxiety. And what singularly characterizes the period is 
that prodigious as the armaments and preparations have been 
on both sides, not an intimation has been given to the public 
on either side of any misunderstanding between them. Russia 
has declared and adhered to the determination not to begin 
the War, but on the subject of the differences which had arisen 
between them, there has been a persevering refusal on her part 
to negotiate at all, the motive for which will doubtless now be 
assigned, but which as yet is unaccountable." 

J. Q. A. to Thomas Boylston Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 4 July, 1812. 
* * * * * "On the ^ June, the hostilities between 
France and Russia commenced. The French crossed the river 
Niemen at four different places and invaded the Russian Terri- 
tory. The latest accounts are of the ^| when no Event of 
importance had occurred. A general action must have taken 
place, or cannot probably be delayed many days longer. We 
are within three days distance of the news. The forces on 
both sides are great; and the issue of the conflict will be mo- 
mentous. It is a period of anxious expectation." * * * 



• The personages referred to in this letter are Fisher Ames (1758-1808) ; Robert Walsh 
(1784-1859) author of " Letter on the Genius and Disposition of the French Government" 
(Philadelphia, 1810); Benjamin Russell (1761-1845) editor of the Columbian Centinel; 
and William Coleman (1766-1829) editor of the New York Evening Post. 

' The French army crossed the river Niemen, near Kovno, Prussian Poland, June 23d, 
oommencing Napoleon's Moscow campaign. 



11 

J. Q. A. to Thomas Boylston Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 14 July, 1812. 
* * * * * ''By what singular and unaccountable acci- 
dent the letters taken from Captain Hinkley last year at Ham- 
burg, ever found their way to you is matter of much more 
surprize to me than the Seizure of them by the Police at the 
time. It must certainly be that generosity, which your father 
gives the world credit for, which induced the honourable 
Seal-Breakers to forward the letters, after reading them, and 
there is a candour and honhommie, in the enclosure of their 
own abstract and Translation, which I like much better than 
Mylord Castlereagh's Report from the Right Honourable 
the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty that "no letters, 
public or private, were broken open. " 

When I first learnt that my number 11 to you had fallen 
into the hands of the French Police, and that in all probability 
it had been transmitted to Paris, I very well knew that the 
paragraph of which the Translation is now in your hands would 
excite attention, and have a degree of interest there stronger 
than you could imagine. It referred to Transactions, and to 
the exertion of an influence with which they were well ac- 
quainted, and which had given me more trouble and concern 
than anything else that has happened during my residence 
here. When they got the letter the struggle was over, and 
their objects had been completely defeated. I have no doubt 
they understood every word of the extract better than you 
to whom the letter was directed, because they had "reports 
from other sources relative to the same subject, which you have 
had no opportunity of perusing. His Majesty the Emperor 
Napoleon occupies himself much more with details of Com- 
merce than you seem to be aware of; and if he does not exactly 
reason from his informations as you and I might, it is because 
certain motives enter into the composition of his deliberations, 
which we should not so readily admit. 

Mr. John Henry's Correspondence is one of the most in- 
structive political pamphlets that has fallen under my cogni- 
zance for several years. Among many other interesting 
Revelations, it discloses, or at least asserts that the Pleasures 
and the Indolence of certain Ministers abandon to subalterns 
the administration of public affairs. One of the great misfor- 
tunes of all the old Governments of Europe, and it has not a 
little contributed to their greatest Calamities of late years, 
has been precisely this — That their great Men, their Ministers 
and Generals have been and are Men of Pleasure and of In- 
dolence, and of course that their business has of necessity 
been abandoned to subalterns. Ignorance of what they ought 



12 

to know, has been no inconsiderable source of the blunders 
which have been punished by such heavy Calamities to them- 
selves. Whatever may be the Vices of France under her new 
System, this is not among them. She at least is not governed 
by subalterns. The activity of all her official administrations 
might teach her enemies a lesson of wisdom, if luxury, sensu- 
ality and indolence could learn wisdom from either friend or 
foe. But when Indolence contends with Toil; when Pleasure 
wrestles with Diligence, which party think you, will bear 
away the prizes? I certainly do not approve the manner in 
which His Majesty's Police obtained possession of my letter; 
but the extract and translation sufficiently show, that it was 
not obtained without a purpose, and I incline to the belief 
that its final enclosure to you was intended as a hint that its 
contents had not been perused without suitable notice. 

The City of St. Petersburg has no longer the honour of being 
the scene of Negotiations, either political or commercial. The 
Emperor and his Minister of Foreign Affairs have both been 
nearly three months absent from it, and now in the political 
Convulsion which is shaking Europe to its deepest foundations, 
Russia has once more changed her side, and entered upon the 
''bloody Arena." The War has been commenced more than 
three weeks. Of its Events hitherto our information here is 
not very distinct nor perhaps very accurate. The Russians 
have been retreating to unite their forces, but nothing decisive 
of the issue of the Campaign has to our knowledge hitherto 
occurred." 

J. Q. A, to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 10 August, 1812. 
* * * * * ''The War in the North of Europe has already 
been marked by an alternate series of successes and disasters 
to both parties. The French armies have been advancing 
upon the Russian Territory, untill they have occupied almost 
all the Polish Provinces within the Russian Dominion. The 
Russian armies have been retreating before them, without 
suffering themselves to be drawn into a general Engagement. 
But in every instance when they have engaged partially, the 
Russians have been, or at least represent themselves to have 
been victorious. This City has been three times illuminated 
within the last week — twice of which three times was for vic- 
tories over the invading armies. They no doubt have a differ- 
ent story to tell on their part, but notwithstanding the rapidity 
with which they have penetrated into the Country, and the 
delay of resistance against them which has been systematically 
pursued, the Spirit and Confidence of the People here is much 
greater than it was at the commencement of the Campaign. 



13 

Besides the immense armament which they already have on 
foot, the losses of which as yet have been small, they are now 
organizing a second line of defence, and preparing to have two 
or three hundred thousand men, to supply the places of those 
now in the field, if any serious disaster should happen to them. 
Numbers of Men will not be wanting to them for any probable 
emergency. They will form troops easily disciplined, and will 
receive from England supplies of arms, ammunition, and per- 
haps Cloathing. If they continue to avoid a general Action, 
or if engaging in one they win the Battle, there is no doubt 
but they will drive the Invaders back before Winter beyond 
the frontiers." 

J. Q. A. to Thomas Boylston Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 29 September, 1812. 

*'A War between the United States and Great Britain, and 
a War between France and Russia, having commenced on the 
same Week in the month of June last, have concurred almost 
entirely to annihilate the few and precarious opportunities 
of Communication with you, which I had previously possessed. 
Our War has banished our flag from the Baltic, and stopped 
the channel of conveyance through England of which I some- 
times availed myself. The French and Russian War has 
stopped the communication between this place and Paris, by 
which I sometimes received letters from America, and through 
which I sometimes wrote. I have had no letter from you, 
nor from any person in America, since I wrote you last. I 
seem to be cut off from all intercourse with my Country. 
* * * * * ''As I know not how, or when, or if ever this 
letter will reach you, nor into whose hands it may fall, common 
prudence forbids me to say much on the public affairs of the 
world. You know my sentiments with regard to the War 
which has commenced in our own Country. I cannot say 
that the Declaration was avoidable, when it took place. But 
I think that its principal Cause and Justification was removed 
precisely at the moment when it occurred. I have flattered 
myself with the hope that when the change of policy forced 
upon the British Ministry by our previous measures, should 
be known in America, it would still be practicable to arrest 
the War, at the threshold and to restore us to the blessings of 
Peace and Neutrality. But my expectations have been weak- 
ened by the information of what was passing in America im- 
mediately after the Declaration, and now are almost extinct. 

A more terrible and destructive War is raging in the heart 
of the Country where I reside. Three Months have elapsed 
since the invasion of the Russian Territories, by French ar- 
mies; and they are already in possession of Moscow. Several 



14 

bloody Battles have been fought, with various and alternate 
success; none of them, however, of a character to decide the 
Event, even of this Campaign. Neither the People nor the 
Government of this Country are disheartened by the present 
aspect of their affairs. They consider the situation of their 
Enemy as desperate in the midst of his success and entertain 
not a doubt that they will ultimately expel him and his armies 
from their Country. The army destined against this City 
has been repeatedly defeated with such heavy losS that the 
place is thought secure notwithstanding the occupation of 
Moscow. Some of the English Inhabitants of the City are 
however preparing to leave it. " 

J,Q, A. to John Adams, 

St. Petersburg, 4 October, 1812. 
****** ''Put of the War in the Country where 
I reside you may expect me to speak more at large, and besides 
the general Interest to which it is entitled, as forming so large 
a portion of the history of the Civilized World, our residence 
here may give you a particular concern with it, as our own 
situation and Circumstances are in no small degree involved 
in its Events. On the 24th of June the War began; and from 
that day to this according to the official Bulletins published 
here has consisted of an uninterrupted series of Russian Vic- 
tories. We have had Te Deums, Illuminated Cannon firing, 
Bell-ringing, and all the external demonstrations of continual 
triumph, while the French armies have been advancing with 
rapid and steady pace, untill on the 15th of September, the 
very day that my poor child died, they took possession of 
Moscow, the antient and renowned Metropolis of the Russian 
Empire. The real progress of military Operations has been 
known very tardily, and only by the dates from time to time 
of the Official Reports from Head Quarters. It is not prudent 
to have the knowledge of disasters, when they have happened 
— still less to anticipate those that may come. The private 
Correspondence from the armies, must tally with, or at least 
not materially vary from the official Reports, of the Com- 
manders in Chief. Discretion is one of the most universal 
Virtues, in Governments organized like this, as the Want 
of it is one of those the most surely and severely punished. 
The concealment and disguise practised to keep the knowledge 
from the public of facts which it would be disagreeable to them 
to know, give rise however to many rumours of defeat and 
misfortune still more unfounded than the official Reports of 
Victories, so that between flattering misrepresentations, on 
one side, and fictitious alarms on the other, the real state of 



15 

Affairs is perhaps better and sooner known in the other hemi- 
sphere than here as it were upon the very scene of Action. 

There, however, a spectator has the opportimity of witness- 
ing the impressions produced upon the public mind, by the 
course of the War, which could not be so well observed at a 
distance. The hopes of the Russians that the issue will be 
glorious and successful to them are founded, first on their 
army, and secondly on the natural advantages of their situa- 
tion. To judge of the Operations of their Generals from their 
measures it would seem that their sole Instructions are on no 
consideration and in no Event whatsoever to risk any essential 
disaster to the army. To abandon everything else rather than 
stake the army upon the chances of a Battle. This system is 
cautious, and perhaps the best that could have been adopted, 
but it gives an appearance of timidity to all their warlike opera- 
tions, singularly contrasting with the boldness and impetuosity 
of the invader, and which he has not failed to turn to his own 
advantage. Twice on the passage from the river Niemen to 
Moscow the Russians appear to have determined to meet their 
Enemy in Battle, and on both occasions they assert that the 
field of Battle was theirs. But the fear of hazarding the 
safety of the army, has not only prevented them from profiting 
by their success, but has induced them to yield to their van- 
quished antagonist all the fruits of Victory. For the Battle 
of Borodino, St. Petersburg was illuminated and a Te Deum 
was performed. The Russian General who commanded at it 
was made a Field-Marshal, and received a gratuity of a hun- 
dred thousand Rubles — and eight days afterwards Napoleon 
entered Moscow; and the Field-Marshal, with excuse and 
apology reported to his Master, that notwithstanding his 
Victory, he had surrendered the Capital, to preserve the army. 

But Napoleon is in an Enemy's Country. Hemmed in 
between four Russian Armies, over whose bodies he must 
either advance or retreat. Two thousand Miles distant from 
his own Capital; having lost one half the forces with which he 
commenced the War, and surrounded in the midst of his Camp 
by auxiliary armies so disaffected to him and his Cause that 
at the first sympton of defeat they would more eagerly turn 
their armies against him than they now follow his banners. 
Notwithstanding his rapid and hitherto triumphant Career, 
the hope of finally expelling and even annihilating him and 
his whole host here grows sanguine in proportion as he pro- 
ceeds. It is far stronger and more Confident than it was at 
the Commencement of the War, and the Emperor Alexander, 
who then pledged himself to his People that he would never 
make Peace while one armed Enemy should have his foot on 
the Russian Territory, has since the loss of Moscow publicly 



16 

said that none but a scoundrel can at the present juncture 
pronounce the name of Peace. " 

J. Q, A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 24 October, 1812. 

* * * * * ''If relief could be obtained for actual woe by 
contemplating the wretchedness of others our distress would 
indeed be light. There is now scarcely a spot upon the hab- 
itable globe but is desolated by the scourge of War. I see my 
own Country writhing under it, and every hope of better 
prospects vanishing before me. If I turn my eyes around me, 
I see the flame still more intensely burning. Fire and the 
Sword are ravaging the Country where I reside. Moscow, the 
antient Metropolis, one of the most magnificent and most 
populous Cities of Europe in the hands of an invader, and 
probably the greatest part of it buried in ashes. Numerous 
inferior Cities daily devoted to the same Destruction, and 
Millions of People trampled under the feet of oppresion or 
fugitives from the ruins of their habitations, perishing by hun- 
ger, in woods or deserts. It is by the slaughter of many 
thousands, and by the time and chance, which happen to all 
men, winning the race from the swift, and wresting the battle 
from the strong, that the spot from which I write has hitherto 
been saved from sharing the fate of the Capital of the Empire. 
No one can tell how long it will enjoy this exemption. Its 
prospects are more favourable than they have been heretofore, 
and it is now threatened by no immediate danger. ^ But while 
the invader shall tread upon the Russian soil, its situation 
cannot be perfectly secure. " 

J. Q. A. to John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 5 November, 1812. 

* * * * * "To escape as much as possible from the 
ineflfable mortification of this burlesque upon War, I endeavour 
to persuade myself that it is a new proof that War was neces- 
sary to us. We are indeed coping with an Enemy whose naval 
and military force is so disproportioned to ours that nothing 
but the consideration of the other Enemies with whom he must 
at the same time contend, could save us from the sentence of 
gross and glaring folly for engaging him at all. But in addi- 
tion to all his other advantages at the outset of this contest 
he has that of beginning with the skill and experience of twenty 
years previous War, with the greatest and most formidable 
Powers, while all our martial metal has been gathering the 
rust of the same twenty years. With troops and Generals 



* The retreat of the French army had begun October 15, 



17 

so perfectly raw, and those with which from the nature of 
things we must enter the field, awkward, unskilful, and un- 
successful operations were naturally to be expected. I was 
prepared to hear of them; though for such grinning infamy^ 
as this I confess I had not looked forward. If then our mili- 
tary faculty has already degenerated to such excessive debase- 
ment, it seems high time for us to have the experiment whether 
it is yet capable of being retrieved. The Courage of a Soldier, 
Gibbon says, is the cheapest quality of human nature; but it 
will often fail, and at the most critical and fatal moment with- 
out the aid of use, discipline, and example. If it had been 
possible for us to avoid a War at this time and even to have 
enjoyed many more years of Peace, War must after all have 
come at last, and if we are so disqualified for it now, is it not 
probable that in the progress of enervation and languor which 
another long period of inaction would have produced, the very 
Spirit of Independence itself might have been extinguished, 
and we should have been really, what Fisher Ames said we 
were ten years ago, ^* of all men on Earth, the fittest to be 
Slaves';? 

We live indeed in an age when it is not lawful for any civi- 
lized Nation to be unprepared for or incapable of War. Never, 
with an aching Heart I say it, never did the warlike Spirit- 
burn with so intense a flame throughout the civilized World 
as at this moment. Never was the prospect of its continuing 
to burn and becoming still fiercer, so terrible as now. It 
would perhaps not be difficult to show that the State of War 
has become indispensable to the existence both of the French 
and British Governments. That in Peace they would both find 
their destruction. That they both must force outwards those 
deadly humours of National Corruption, which if allowed to 
be thrown back upon their own vitals would produce speedy 
and inevitable death. Add to this, that War has become not 
only in France but even in England, and Spain, and Portugal, 
and now in Russia, the great, if not the only Career of Wealth, 
Honour and Renown. That while the glory of Principalities, 
Kingdoms and Empires as Rewards of martial achievement, 
is blazing in the bosoms of men in the higher Classes of Society, 



» Hiill's surrender of Detroit had occurred August 16, and the previous day Fort Dear- 
bom at Chicago had been evacuated and its garrison massacred by the Indians, acting 
in co-operation with the British. " The last vestige of American authority on the western 
lakes disappeared. Thenceforward the line of the Wabash and the Maumee became the 
military boundary of the United States in the Northwest, and the country felt painful 
doubt whether even that line could be defended." (Adams, United States, VI, 335.) 
The equally unhappy and no less discreditable reverses of the, so-called, Niagara cam- 
paign did not occur until the middle of the following month, and tidings of them could 
not have reached St. Petersburg at the time this letter was written. Allusion is made to 
them in the following extract from a letter of November 24. 



18 

the misery and famine which War itself has brought upon 
numberless multitudes of the lower Classes, is forcing them 
into the ranks, and filling every vacant spot as fast as the 
sword can make it. The fruits of Victory by land are no longer 
exclusively reserved for France — England has at length 
brought forth a General, ^ who bids fair to redeem the military 
Fame of his Country, and to take his stand in History, if not 
with the Edwards and the Henry's of former ages, at least 
with the Wolf and the Marlborough of the last. 

A more extraordinary phenomenon is here unfolding itself 
before my eyes. With a standing army of at least five hun- 
dred thousand men, the Emperor of Russia, by a simple sum- 
mons to his people has called forth in less than three months 
three hundred thousand more, who with the Caftan, and the 
Beard, and the hatchet, are mingled in among the regiments of 
smooth-faced, uniformed veterans, and already rivalize with 
them in martial exploit. Napoleon has taken Moscow, but 
it is doubtful whether he or his army will ever get back from 
it. In his attempts upon St. Petersburg and Riga, he has 
been foiled, and his troops and his marshals have been 
repeatedly and effectually beaten. Russia has not only dis- 
covered a vigour and energy of defence beyond the expectations 
of both her friends and foes, but she has perhaps discovered 
to herself a secret of her own strength of which she was not 
aware. It is not for Riga, Moscow or St. Petersbui'g that 
France and Russia are now contending, it is for the dominion 
of the European Continent. In this Campaign, and while 
I write Napoleon has exposed and is exposing, many believe 
to certain destruction, assuredly to the most imminent danger, 
not only himself and his army, but the whole mass of French 
Power, accumulated in twenty years of Revolution. " * * * 

J. Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

,, , CI St. Petersburg, ^2d November, 1812. 

My dEAR Sir: ' ' 

Toward the close of the last summer there arirved here as 
a sort of a semi ofl&cial appendage to the British embassy an old 
acquaintance of yours, Sir Francis D'lvernois who as you 
know has been for many years a distinguished political writer 
in the French language and in the Interest of the British Gov- 
ernment. He came not I believe with but very soon after the 
Embassador Lord Cathcart.i° Just at the same time a lady of 



• The battle of Salamanca, in which Wellington decisively defeated the French under 
command of Marshal Marmont, had occurred July 22. 

10 William Shaw Cathcart, created Earl Cathcart July 16, 1814. He had served in the 
American Revolutionary War, 1777-1780. He was Ambassador from the Court of St. 
Jamea to that of Russia in 1812-1814. 



19 

celebrated fame, Madame de Stael, the daughter of Mr. 
Necker, was also here on a transient visit." As I had not the 
honor of being personally known to Madame de Stael and as 
we had just received information of the American Declaration 
of war against Britain, I had no expectation of having any 
communication or intercourse either with the Embassador 
or the lady. 

Early one morning I received a note from Madame de Stael, 
requesting me to call on her at her lodgings, that same day at 
noon as she wished to speak to me on a subject respecting 
America. I went accordingly at the hour appointed and upon 
entering the lady's saloon found there a company of some fif- 
teen or twenty persons not a soul of whom I had ever before 
seen. An elderly gentleman in the full uniform of an English 
General was seated on a sopha and the lady whom I immediate- 
ly perceived to be Madame de Stael was complimenting him 
with equal elegance and fluency upon the glories of his nation, 
his countryman. Lord Wellington, and his own. The Battle 
of Salamanca and the bombardment of Copenhagen were 
themes upon which much was to be said and upon which she 
said much. When I went in she intermitted her discourse 
a moment to receive me and offer me a seat which I immedi- 
ately took and for about half an hour had the opportunity 
to admire the brilliancy of her genius as it sparkled incessantly 
in her conversation. 

There was something a little too broad and direct in the 
substance of the panegyrics which she pronounced to allow 
them the claim of refinement. There was neither disguise nor 
veil to cover their naked beauties, but they were expressed 
with so much variety and vivacity that the hearers had not 
time to examine the thread of their texture. Lord Cathcart 
received the compliments pointed at himself with becoming 
modesty; those to his nation with apparent satisfaction and 
those to the conqueror of Salamanca with silent acquiescence. 
The lady insisted that the British nation was the most aston- 
ishing nation of antient or modern times, the only preservers 
of social order, the exclusive defenders of the liberties of man- 
kind. To which his lordship added that their glory was in 
being a moral nation, a character which he was sure they would ' 
always preserve. The glittering sprightliness of the Lady and 



" Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de Stael-Holstein, better known as Madame 
de Stael, was born at Paris, April 22, 1766, and died there July 14, 1817. Exiled from 
France in 1812 by order of Napoleon, she visited Austria, Russia, Sweden, and England. 
She was then forty-six years of age, and at the height of her great reputation. This letter 
of J. Q. Adams to John Adams is dated the 22d of November, 1812. The interview des- 
cribed, however, and the conversations related took place on the 6th and 8th of the pre- 
vious September, 



20 

the stately gravity of the Embassador were as well contrasted 
as their respective topics of praise, and if my mind had been 
at ease to relish anything in the nature of an exhibition I 
should have been much amused at hearing a Frenchwoman's 
celebration of the English for generosity towards other nations 
and a lecture upon national morality from the commander of 
the expedition to Copenhagen. 

During this sentimental duet between the ambassador and 
the Embassadress, I kept my seat, merely an auditor. The 
rest of the company were equally silent. Among them was 
an English Naval Officer, Admiral Bentinck, since deceased. 
He was then quite the chevalier d^honneur to Madame de Stael 
but whether the scene did not strike him precisely as it did 
me or whether his feelings resulting from it were of a more 
serious cast than mine the moment it was finished and the 
Ambassador had taken leave he drew a very long breath and 
sighed it out as if relieved from an offensive burden saying 
only "thank God that's over." He and all the rest of the 
company immediately after that retired and left me tete-d-tete 
with Madame Stael. The subject respecting America was 
to tell me that she had a large siun in the American funds and 
to enquire whether I knew how she could contrive to receive 
the interest which she had hitherto received from England. 
I gave her such information as I possessed. She had also 
some lands in the State of New York of which she wished to 
know the value. I answered her as well as I could but her 
lands and her funds did not appear to occupy much of her 
thoughts. She soon asked me if I was related to that cele- 
brated Mr. Adams the author of the book upon Government. 
I said I had the happiness of being his son. She replied that 
she had read it and admired it very much, that her father, 
Mr. Necker, had always expressed a very high opinion of it. 
She next commenced upon Politics and asked how it was 
possible that America should have declared war against Eng- 
land. In accounting for this phenomenon I was obliged to 
recur to a multitude of facts not as strongly stamped with 
British generosity or British Morality as might be expected 
from such a character as she and the Embassador had been 
assigning to that nation. The orders in coimcil and the press 
gang afforded but a sorry commentary upon the chivalresque 
defence of the liberties of mankind and no very instructive 
lessons of morality. She had nothing to say in their defence 
but she thought that the knights errant of the Human race 
were to be allowed special indulgence and in consideration of 
their cause were not to be held by the ordinary obligations of 
war and peace. There was no probability that any arguments 
of mine could make any impression upon opinions thus toned. 



21 

She listened, however, with as much complacency as could 
be expected to what I said and finally asked me why I had not 
been to see her before. I answered that her high reputation 
was calculated to inspire respect no less than curiosity and that 
however desirous I had been of becoming personally acquainted 
with her I had thought I could not without indiscretion intrude 
myself upon her Society. The reason appeared to please her. 
She said she was to leave this city the next day at noon. She 
was going to Stockholm to pass the winter and afterwards to 
England. She wished to have another conversation with me 
before she went and asked me to call and see her the next 
morning. I readily accepted the invitation and we discussed 
politics again two or three hours. I found her better conver- 
sant with Rhetoric than with Logic. She had much to say 
about social order, much about universal monarchy, much 
about the preservation of religion in which she gave me to 
understand she did not herself believe and much about the 
ambition and tyranny of Buonaparte upon which she soon 
discovered there was no difference of sentiment between us. 
But why did not America join in the holy cause against this 
tyrant? First because America had no means of making war 
against him, she could neither attack him by sea or land. 
Secondly because it was a fundamental maxim of American 
policy not to intermeddle with the political affairs of Europe. 
Thirdly because it was altogether unnecessary. He had ene- 
mies enough upon his hands already. What! Did not I 
dread his universal monarchy. Not in the least. I saw indeed 
a very formidable mass of force arrayed under him, but I saw 
a mass of force at least as formidable arrayed against him. 
Europe contained about 160 millions of human beings. He 
was weilding the means of 75 millions and the means of 85 
millions were weilding against him. It was an awful spectacle 
to behold the shock, but I did not believe and never had be- 
lieved that he would ever be able to subjugate even the con- 
tinent of Europe. Had there ever been any real danger of 
such an event it was past. 

She herself saw that there was every prospect of his being 
very shortly driven out of Spain. And I was equally con- 
vinced he would be driven out of Russia. It was the very 
day of the battle of Borodino. "J'en accepts Vaugure,'' she 
said. "Everything that you say of him is very just. But 
I have particular reason for resentment against him. I have 
been persecuted by him in the most shameful manner. I was 
neither suffered to live anywhere nor to go where I would 
have gone, — and all for no other reason but because I would 
not eulogize him in my writings. 

As to our war with England I told her that I deeply lamented 



22 

it and yet cherished the hope that it would not last long. 
That England had forced it upon us by measures as outrageous 
upon the rights of an independent nation, as tyrannical, as 
oppressive, as any that could be charged upon Buonaparte. 
Her pretences were retaliation and necessity. Retaliation 
upon America for the wrongs of France and necessity for man 
Stealing. We asked of England nothing but our indisputable 
rights, but we allowed no special prerogatives to political 
Quixotism. We did not consider Britain at all as the cham- 
pion for the liberties of mankind but as another Tyrant pre- 
tending to exclusive dominion upon the ocean. A pretension 
full as detestable and I trusted in God full as chimerical as 
the pretensions of univeral monarchy upon the land. Mad- 
ame de Stael ''was of her own opinion still" but on the point 
of impressment she owned that my observations were reason- 
able. I have not yet found a European of any nation but 
the British who on having this question in its true statement 
brought to a precise point had a syllable to say for the English 
side. In conclusion I told her that the pretended retaliation 
of England had compelled us to resort to real retaliation upon 
them and that as long as they felt a necessity to fight for the 
practice of stealing men from American merchant vessels on 
the high seas we should feel the necessity of fighting against it. 
I could only hope that God would prosper the righteous cause. 
Madame de Stael on my leaving her charged me if I ever 
should be again in any place where she should be at the same 
time not to neglect paying her a visit which I very willingly 
promised. 12 gj^e left St. Petersburg the same day. I should 
ask Sir Francis D'lvernois pardon. I began this letter with 
him, but whom can one help deserting for Madame de Stael? 
I will return to Sir Francis by the next opportunity having 
now only room to say that I am dutifully and affectionately 
yours. 

J. Q. A. to Thomas Boylston Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 24 November, 1812. 
* * * * * ''You know how deeply I was disappointed 
at the breaking out of our War, precisely at the moment when 
I entertained the most ardent and sanguine hopes that War 
had become unnecessary. Its Events have hitherto been far 
from favourable to our Cause, but they have rather contributed 
to convince me of its necessity, upon principles distinct from 
the consideration of its Causes. The termination of General 
Hull's campaign in upper Canada is known to us, as far as the 



" Mr. Adams subsequently met Madame de Stael again in Paris, in February, 1815, 
during the interim between the abdication of Fontainebleau and Napoleon's return from 
Elba. See Memoirs, III, 153, 155, 165. 



23 

English Government have seen fit to make it known, by the 
dispatches from the Governor General and General Brock, 
and by the Capitulation. We are informed also of an armis- 
tice agreed to by General Dearborn, which the President re- 
fused to ratify — and from these two portents I have come to 
the conclusion, which indeed it was not very difficult to antici- 
pate before, that our projected invasion of Canada will end 
this year in total and most disgraceful defeat. 

The misfortune « considered by itself is not a very heavy 
one to the Nation. But it is a deep mortgage of reputation 
to redeem. Its effects upon the Spirits and dispositions of 
the people present the most important light in which it is to 
be viewed; and these to my mind are problematical. If the 
effect upon the national sentiment should be familiar to that 
of the Chesapeake affair, we shall not have ultimately much 
reason to regret the disaster of Hull's army, or the failure of 
our first military expeditions. Our means of taking the Brit- 
ish possessions upon our Continent are so ample and unques- 
tionable that if we do not take them it must be owing to the 
want of qualities, without which there, is no Independent 
Nation, and which we must acquire at any hazard and any 
loss. 

The acquisition of Canada however was not and could not 
be the object of this War. I do not suppose it is expected that 
we should keep it if we were now to take it. Great Britain is 
yet too powerful and values her remaining possessions too 
highly to make it possible for us to retain them at the Peace, 
if we should conquer them by the War. The time is not come. 
But the power of Great Britain must soon decline. She is now 
straining it so excessively beyond its natural extent that it 
must before long sink under the violence of its own exertions. 
Her paper credit is already rapidly declining, and she is daily 
becoming more extravagant in the abuse of it. I believe that 
her Government could not exist three years at Peace without 
a National Convulsion. And I doubt whether she can carry 
on three years longer the War in which she is now engaged, 
without such failure of her finances as she can never recover. 
It is in the stage of weakness which must inevitably follow 
that of overplied and exhausted strength that Canada and all 
her other possessions would have fallen into our hands with- 
out the need of any effort on our part, and in a manner more 
congenial to our principles, and to Justice, than by Conquest. 

The great Events daily occurring in the Country whence I 
now write you are strong and continual additional warnings 
to us not to involve ourselves in the inextricable labyrinth of 
European politicks and Revolutions. The final issue of the 
campaign in the North of Europe is not yet completely ascer- 



24 

tained;" but there is no longer a doubt but that it must be disas- 
trous in the highest degree to France, and no less glorious to 
Russia. It may not improbably end in the utter annihilation 
of the invading army, three-fourths of which have already 
been destroyed. Whether the Emperor Napoleon will per- 
sonally escape the fate which has befallen so many of his 
followers is yet doubtful, but it may be taken for granted that 
he will never be able again to assemble against Russia a force 
which can be formidable to the security or Integrity of her 
Empire. The politicians who have been dreading so long the 
phantom of universal monarchy may possess their souls in 
quietness. Never having been infected with the terror of it, 
I shall derive no new source of tranquility from these occur- 
rences; but I cannot say that my foresight was clear enough 
to expect that the Colossus of French power would in so very 
short a period be staggering upon its foundations so manifestly 
as it is. It is impossible not to consider the internal State of 
France as greatly depending upon the course of these external 
Events. The Empire of Napoleon was built upon victory 
alone. Defeat takes away its foundation, and with such defeat 
as he is now suffering, it would be nothing surprizing to see the 
whole fabrick crumble into ruins. France indeed still remains; 
a formidable mass of power; but into what condition she may 
be plunged by the overthrow of his Government I am scarcely 
able to conjecture. 

The day of trial to Russia has been severe; but it has been 
short, and her deportment imder it will raise her high in the 
estimation of mankind. Her plan of defence has the most 
decisive demonstration in its favour — success — and success 
under numerous incidental circumstances disadvantageous 
to her. Not only her armies, but her peasantry, armed and 
sent into the field as if by enchantment, have fought with the 
most invincible courage, though not always with favourable 
Fortune. The chances of War have been sometimes with and 
sometimes against them, but they have arrested the Career 
of the Conqueror of the Age, and drawn him on to ruin, even 
when they yielded him the Victory." 

J. Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 30 November, 1812. 
***** ''It may well be doubted whether in the com- 
pass of human history since the Creation of the World, a 

M This was written November 24. The terrible passage of the river Beresina by the 
remnants of the French army occurred between the 26th and 29th of the same month 
and, six days later, December 5th, Napoleon, at Smorgoni, made known to the French 
Marshals his intention to leave the army and proceed at once to Paris. He arrived 
there the evening of December 18. 



25 

greater, more sudden and more total reverse of Fortune was 
ever experienced by man, than is now exhibiting in the person 
of a man, whom Fortune for a previous course of nearly twenty 
years had favored with a steadiness and a prodigality equally 
unexampled in the annals of mankind. He entered Russia 
at the head of three hundred thousand men, on the 24th of last 
June. On the 15th of September he took possession of Mos- 
cow, the Russian armies having retreated before him almost 
as fast as he could advance; not however without attempting 
to stop him by two Battles, one of which was perhaps the most 
bloody that has been fought for many ages. He appears really 
to have concluded that all he had to do was to reach Moscow, 
and the Russian Empire would be prostrate at his feet. In- 
stead of that it was precisely then that his serious difficulties 
began. Moscow was destroyed; partly by his troops, and 
partly by the Russians themselves. His Communications 
in his rear were continually interrupted and harrassed by sep- 
arate small Detachments from the Russian Army. His two 
flanks, one upon the Dwina, and the other upon the frontier 
of Austria were both overpowered by superior forces, which 
were drawing together and closing behind him; and after 
having passed six weeks in total inaction at Moscow, he found 
himself with a starving and almost naked army, eight himdred 
miles from his frontier, exposed to all the rigour of a Russian 
Winter, with an Army before him superior to his own and 
a Country behind him already ravaged by himself, and where 
he had left scarcely a possibility of any other sentiment than 
that of execration and vengeance upon himself and his follow- 
ers. He began his retreat on the 28th of October, scarcely 
a month since, and at this moment, if he yet lives, he has scarce- 
ly the ruins of an Army remaining with him. He has been 
pursued with all the eagerness that could be felt by an exas- 
perated and triumphant Enemy. Thousands of his men have 
perished by famine — thousands by the extremity of the Season, 
and in the course of the last ten days we have heard of more 
than thirty thousand who have laid down their arms almost 
without resistance. His Cavalry is in a more dreadful condi- 
tion even then his Infantry. He has lost the greatest part of 
his Artillery, — has abandoned most of the baggage of his 
army; and has been even reduced to blow up his own stores of 
ammunition. The two wings of the Russian Armies have 
formed their junction and closed the passage to his retreat; 
and according to every human probability within ten days the 
whole remnant of his host will be compelled like the rest to 
lay down their arms and surrender at discretion. If he has a 
soul capable of surviving such an Event, he will probably 
be a prisoner himself. 



26 

Should he by some extraordinary accident escape in his 
own person, he has no longer a force nor the means of assemb- 
ling one which can in the slightest degree be formidable to 
Russia. Even before his Career of victory had ceased, com- 
motions against his Government had manifested themselves 
in his own Capital, on a false rumour of his death which had 
been circulated. Now that,i? he returns at all, it must be as 
a solitary fugutive, it is scarcely possible that he should be 
safer at the Thuileries, than he would be in Russia. His 
allies, almost every one of whom was such upon the bitterest 
compulsion, and upon whom he has brought the most impend- 
ing danger of ruin, may not content themselves merely with 
deserting him. Revolutions in Germany, France, and Italy 
must be the inevitable consequence of this state of things, 
and Russia, whose influence in the political affairs of the World 
he expressly threatened to destroy, will henceforth be the 
arbitress of Europe. 

It has pleased Heaven for many years to preserve this man, 
and to make him prosper, as an instrument of divine wrath 
to scourge mankind. His race is now run, and his own term 
of punishment has commenced. — "Fret not thyself because 
of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who 
bringeth wicked devices to pass — for yet a little while, and the 
wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his 
place and it shall not be. " How often have I thought of this 
Oracle of divine truth, with an application of the Sentiment 
to this very man upon whom it is now so signally fulfilling. 
And how ardently would I pray the supreme disposer of Events 
that the other and more consolatory part of the same promise^* 
may now be also near its accomplishment — "But the meek 
shall inherit the Earth, and shall delight themselves in the 
abundance of Peace. " 

Mrs. John Adams to J. Q. A. 

December 30th, 1812. 
"Despairing almost of conveying a letter to you amidst 
the war of Empires and Kingdoms, I have had but little encour- 
agement to write, yet knowing how anxious you must be relative 
to your Family, your Children, your Friends and Country, 
I shall make the attempt and trust this letter on Board a 
Cartel now going from N. York to England hoping that it will 
be treated with the same lenity with which we treat our Ene- 
mies, send them to the place of their destination. 
* * * 4: * ^^Q have had our misfortunes and our disas- 
ters to contend with, owing to want of skill, discipline and 



w Psalms xxxvii, 10, 11. 



27 

proper arrangement, but we shall learn wisdom by chastise- 
ment, and skill by experience. In the meantime we shall have 
our sufferings to contend with. The defeats we have met with 
upon the land, in our imperfect attacks upon -Canady have 
been mortifying to us because we have reason to believe they 
might have been successful. Our Country have been so nobly 
monumented upon the ocean, by our Hull, Jones and Decatur 
that we glory in our infant navy, and hope to add a new line 
to the song, ''of rule Britannia, rule the waves," and to con- 
vince the self-stiled Queen of the ocean that there is a power 
rising up, not to usurp the title, but to contend for their own 
rights and to oblige others to yield them. To this and the 
bill which is now past in Congress to build with all possible 
dispatch four seventy-four gun ships and six 44 gun frigates, 
making ten with those already agreed upon, these with those 
we already have in commission will be sufficient to protect our 
commerce and teach other nations to respect it also ; our navy 
has already instructed Great Britain in some wholesome truths 
and it would be much for her interest to listen to them. She 
may rest assured that this increase of our naval establishment 
will be the binding chain of the union and she will hear very 
little more of the cry of N. England for peace if she persists 
in her injustice. The re-election of Mr. Madison, now certain 
by a majority of 36 already returned, and of Mr. Gerry who 
has still more votes, plainly show that altho a great clamour 
has been excited, and British partizens have been active in 
fomenting it, yet the great body of the people are united. She 
needs no other proof of this than the universal applause with 
which our naval victories have been hailed and celebrated and 
the honours bestowed upon the conquerors throughout the 
United States. 

We look with sorrow and with heart felt anguish upon the 
desolation of the ''cloud capt Towers and gorgeous Palaces" 
of that ancient, wealthy, and magnificent city of Moscow. 
Charles the 12 of Sweden was as brave as Napoleon. May the 
Emperor Alexander be as fortunate and as successful as the 
great Peter. 

What havock and destruction of the human species! Can 
man be born then, only to be destroyed by his fellow man. 
Yet plagues and earthquakes break not Heaven's designs. 
Are we rational creatures? 

J. Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 31 December, 1812. 
* * * * * "A Mr. Andrew of Salem, left this place about 
three weeks since, on his return to America. By him I wTote 
to you and my father; to my brother; and a short letter to my 



2S 

two sons at Atkinson. Since then I have not heard from you 
nor from the United States at till. But an EngUsh Gazette 
Extraordinary has informed me of the Surrender, number 
two — Brigadier Cunieral Wadsworth and nine hundred men; 
to Major General Roger Hale Sheiiffe.** If we go on at this 
rate, it is to be hoped there will be prisoners enough in Upper 
Canada to take it, without needing any tire-arms. I perceive 
the Indians have the greatest share in the exploits of the Brit- 
ish forces against us — Major General Brock Wiis made a knight 
of the Bath, for taking General Hull, pretty much as Falstaff 
took Sir John Colevile of the Dale; who "gave himself away 
gratis." As General Brock will have no Occasion for his 
"blushing ribband," when it arrives in America,^' the best use 
that could be made of it would be to give it to Xorton, who 
seems quite as much entitled to it on the score of merit and 
service as the conqueror of Detroit himself. 

As this propensity to surrender appears to be an infectious 
distemper among our troops, 1 am in daily expectation of 
hearing the third instance of it, which I hope ^^'ill be the last 
for son\e time. As 1 am willing to believe that we shall learn 
son\ethi!\g by experience. 1 tlatter myself that among the acqui- 
sitions which our Warriors will make they will reckon that of 
rtveiving surrenders in return. If not, the best thing we can 
do will be to turn unanimously disciples of George Fox and 
William Penn, and be conscienciously scrupulous against 
bearing arms. 

If iudtvd the practice of surrendering were about to become 
a n\ilitary fashion, as from the numerous examples of it which 
within the last two months I have almost had under my eyes, 
would seem probable, there might be reason to ho^v that War 
itself would lose some of it^? favour as the only occupation and 
amusement of mankind. In my h\st Letter I g:\ve you a sketch 
of the situation at that time of Xi^pohon the Gnat. There is 
no Account yet that he has personally surrendered himself; 
but he has only saved himself by the swiftness of his flight, 
which on one occasion at lei\st he was obliged to pursue in 
disguise. Of the immense host with which six months since 
he invaded Russia, nine-tenths at le:vst iuv prisoners, or food 



M TIm dwM>wr t^w iqd tooecurredat QuMOfMown od the Caaads aide of the Niacaim 
riTw, Oetober 13. TIm relnat of Um Fren^ army fiom Ruaaia began the following we^; 
and. Oelober SS^ Decatur, m oommand of th« U. S. fri«at» I'miimi Stales, oaptnred the 
Bnttsn fngate JwacwMMMM* 

>* Sir Isaac Brwk. K. C B., in militaiy oommand of the Briti^ forces in Vppct Canada 
im. 1S19« and Uk<*wis«< proTiaional beutenant comnor of the Prorincei. had attained thfa 
rank of Major Q«DMal in Jwnek ISll. An officer of «Miiy ukI ezperivioa. he had «■#> 
tured DetxvHt, Auc^Mt 1& He was kiU«d in the affair at Queenstown, October 1S» foOonr^ 
inc. Ttir«><» d«y9 prevkwaty he had, beoauae of ha serrices at Detroit, been made aa 
extra Knicht of the BaA. 



29 

for worms. They have been surrendering by ten thousands at 
a time, and at this Moment there are at least one hundred and 
fifty thousand of them in the power of the Emperor Alexander. 
From Moscow to Prussia, eight hundred miles of road have 
been strewed with his Artillery, Baggage- Waggons, Ammuni- 
tion-Chests, dead and dying men whom he has been forced to 
abandon to their fate. Pursued all the time by three large 
regular armies of a most embittered and exasperated Enemy, 
and by an almost numberless militia of peasants, stung by 
the destruction of their harvests and cottages which he had 
carried before him, and spurr'd to Revenge at once themselves, 
their Country and their Religion. To complete his disasters, 
the Season itself during the greatest part of his Retreat has 
been unusually rigorous even for this Northern Climate. So 
that it has become a sort of bye-word among the Common 
People here that the two Russian Generals who have conquered 
Napoleon and all his Marshals are General Famine and General 
Frost. There may be and probably is some exaggeration in 
the accounts which have been received and officially published 
here of the late Events; but where the realities are so certain 
and so momentous the temptation to exaggerate and misrep- 
resent almost vanishes. In all human probability the Career 
of Napoleon's conquests is at an end. France can no longer 
give the law to the Continent of Europe. How he will make 
up his account with Germany, the victim of his former suc- 
cessful rashness, and with France, who rewarded it with an 
Imperial Crown is now to be seen. The transition from the 
condition of France in June last to her present State is much 
greater than would be from the present to her defensive cam- 
paign against the Duke of Brunswick in 1792. A new Era 
is dawning upon Europe. The possibility of a more propitious 
prospect is discernible ; but to the great disposer of Events only 
is it known whether this new Revolution is to be an opening 
for some alleviation to human misery or whether it is to be 
only a variation of Calamities. 

It is not without some Satisfaction that I have had the 
opportunity of being so near a witness to the great and decisive 
Events of the year now ending. It has been full of moral and 
political instruction. To the Russian armies and Generals it 
has also been a great military School; so great indeed as not 
altogether to leave reflection unconcerned what future uses 
may be made of what they have learnt; but as military in- 
struction is of little use to me I have only had in this respect 
the opportunity to observe the general features of the Cam- 
paign. Its results have presented nothing new. The Fabian 
system, which succeeded in our Revolutionary War, which 
Lord Wellington has with equal success adopted in Spain and 



30 

Portugal and which even in this Country had triumphed a 
Century before over Charles the twelfth of Sweden has again 
been signally triumphant over the Hero of the present age; 
but his errors have been so gross and flagrant that their con- 
sequences so fatal to himself can teach nothing to the military 
Student but what had been taught a thousand times before. 
It is not the present Disasters, it is the continuance of his 
former successes, which may hereafter excite the astonishment 
of posterity. ***** 

* * * * * "I have already mentioned that the season 
has been unusually rigorous. In the course of this month of 
December, we have had seventeen days in succession with 
Fahrenheit's thermometer almost invariably below 0. I now 
write you at that temperature, and notwithstanding the stoves 
and double windows my fingers can hardly hold the pen. The 
Sun rises at a quarter past 9 in the morning, and sets a quarter 
before 3 in the afternoon; so that we must live almost by Can- 
dle-light. We are all literally and really sick of the Climate. 
It is certainly contrary to the course of Nature, for men of the 
South to invade the Regions of the North. Napoleon should 
have thought of that. So should the visitors of Upper and 
Lower Canada — The Romans to be sure — but they were 
exceptions to all general rules. '* 

J. Q. A. to Mrs, John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 30 January, 1813. 
***** "Another month is drawing to a close, since 
I last wrote you, and I remain without a line from you or from 
any of my friends in America. The last letter from you that 
I have received was dated in April of the last year. * * * 
***** ''There are several Americans residing here, 
who continue to receive frequent letters from their friends at 
home. Through them and through the English Newspapers 
we collect the information of the most important events oc- 
curring on our side of the Water, and sometimes intelligence 
respecting persons of our friends or acquaintance. It is thus 
that we have seen the President's Message to Congress at the 
Commencement of the Session. Its view of the State of our 
affairs is upon the whole, cheering, though I cannot but la- 
ment the remoteness of the prospect which it presents of our 
restoration to Peace. 

The English Government and Nation have been told, and 
have probably believed that Mr. DeWitt Clinton would be 
elected President instead of Mr. Madison, and that he would 
instantly make peace with England upon English terms. 
Of the real issue of the Election we are here not yet informed; 
though accounts from the United States have reached us to 



31 

late in November, and they lead us to expect Mr. Madison^s 
re-election." 

I never entertained very sanguine hopes of success to our 
first military efforts by land. I did not indeed anticipate 
that within six months from the Commencement of the War 
they would make us the scorn and laughter of all Europe, and 
that our National Character would be saved from sinking 
beneath contempt, only by the exploits of our Navy upon the 
Ocean. Blessing upon the names of Isaac Hull and Decatur, 
and their brave Officers and Men! for enabling an American 
to hold up his head among the Nations \^^ — The capture of two 
British frigates successively, by American ships but little 
superior to them in force has not only been most profoundly 
felt in England, but has excited the attention of all Europe. 
It has gone far towards wiping away the disgrace of our two 
Surrenders in Canada. I believe if the English could have had 
their choice they would rather have lost Canada the first 
Campaign, than their two frigates as they have lost them. 
I hope and pray that the effect of these occurrences upon the 
national mind in our own Country will be as powerful as it 
has been in England, but with a different operation. After 
the news of the Guerriere's capture, I saw an Article in the 
Times, a Wellesley Paper, written evidently under the im- 
pression of great alarm; and explicitly declaring that "a new 
Enemy to Great Britain had appeared upon the Ocean, which 
must instantly he crushed, or would become the most formidable 
Enemy to her naval supremacy with ''which she ever had to 
contend. '* We must rely upon it that this will be the prevail- 
ing sentiment of the British Nation. That we must instantly 



" The Presidential election of 1812, occurring in the midst of the war with England, was 
closely contested. James Madison was a candidate for re-election, representing the so- 
called Republican party. De Witt Clinton of New York was the candidate of the Fed- 
eralist party. A change of twenty electoral votes would have turned the scale. The 
Federalists in Massachusetts had a majority of 24,000, and the Peace party swept the 
Congressional districts throughout New England and New York. Madison, however, 
received 128 votes in the Electoral College, out of a total of 217. 

18 The name Isaac was in this letter underscored and emphasized for an obvious reason: 
— " No experience of history ever went to the heart of New England more directly than 
this (Constitution-Guerriere) victory, so peculiarly its own ; but the delight was not confined 
to New England, and extreme thoiigh it seemed it was still not extravagant, for however 
small the affair might appear on the general scale of the world's battles, it raised the 
United States in one half hour to the rank of a first-class Power in the world. 

"Hull's victory was not only dramatic in itself, but was also supremely fortunate in 
the moment it occvirred. The Boston Patriot of September 2, which announced the cap- 
ture of the Guerriere announced in another column the melancholy intelligence of the 
surrender of General Hull and his whole army to the British General Brock. Isaac Hull 
was nephew to the unhappy General, and perhaps the shattered hulk of the Guerriere 
which the nephew left at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, eight hundred miles east of 
Boston, was worth for the moment the whole province which the uncle had lost, eight 
hundred miles to the westward." (Adams, United States, VI, 375-76.) 



32 

be crushed upon the Ocean — and unless our Spirit shall rise 
and expand in proportion to the pressure which they can and 
will apply to crush us, our first success will only serve more 
effectually to seal our ultimate ruin upon the Sea. 

The disproportion of force between us and Britain at Sea 
is so excessive that the very idea of a contest with her upon 
that Element has something in it of desperation. To her it 
is only ridiculous. Upon a late debate in the House of Peers, 
something having been said of the American Navy, Lord Bath- 
urst, one of the Ministers, told their Lordships that the Ameri- 
can Navy consisted of five frigates — and the House burst into 
a fit of laughter. These five frigates, however, have excited 
a sentiment quite different from laughter in the five hundred 
frigates of the British Navy; and if the American People will 
be as true to themselves as their little despised Navy has 
proved itself true to them, it is not in the gigantic power of 
Britain herself to crush us; neither instantly nor in any course 
of time, upon the Ocean. 

Hitherto, Fortune, or rather with a grateful Heart would I 
hmnbly say Providence, has favoured us in a signal manner. 
But we must not expect that our frigates will often have the 
luck of meeting single ships a little inferior in strength to them- 
selves, or of escaping from ships greatly superior to them. 
That they have not already all fallen into the Enemy's hands, 
is matter of surprize as well as of gratulation. Their situation 
during the present year will be still more critical than it has 
been the last, and as they have done honour to their Country 
by their conduct hitherto, I can only hope that their Country 
mil in its turn feel the obligation of supporting them and their 
cause by exertions against which all the thunders of Britain 
will prove to be of no avail. 

The first wish of my heart is for Peace. But the Prospects 
of Peace, both in Eiu'ope and America, are more faint and 
distant than they have been for many years. War has in the 
course of the year 1812 consumed in the North of Europe alone, 
at least half a million of human lives, without producing the 
slightest indication in any of the parties engaged in it of a 
disposition to sheathe the sword/' * * * 

J. Q. A. to Thomas Boylston Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 31 January, 1813. 
***** "The English Government have declared a 
blockade of Chesapeake Bay and Delaware river. New York, 
and the Coast of New England they leave open. They follow 
Captain Henry's advice; just as at the beginning of our Revo- 
lutionary War, they disfranchised Boston in favour of Salem. 



33 

The Spirit of 1775 seems to be extinct in New England/' but 
I hope the profligacy of British policy will not be more suc- 
cessful now than it was then. 

The War between us and them is now reduced to one point 
— Impressment! — A cause for which we should not have 
commenced a War, but without an arrangement of which our 
Government now say they cannot make Peace. If ever there 
was a just cause for War in the sight of Almighty God, this 
cause is on our side just. The essence of this Cause is on the 
British side Oppression, on our side personal liberty. We are 
fighting for the Sailor's Cause. The English Cause is the 
Press-gang. It seems to me that in the very Nature of this 
Cause we ought to find some resources for maintaining it, by 
operation upon the minds of our own Seamen, and upon those 
of the Adversary's. It is sometimes customary for the Com- 
manders of Ships to address their crews, on going into action; 
and to inspirit them by motives drawn from the cause they 
are called to support. In this War, when our Ships go into 
action, their Commanders have the best possible materials 
for cheering their men to extraordinary exertions of duty. 
How the English Admirals and Captains will acquit themselves 
on such occasions I can. easily conjecture. But I fancy to 
myself a Captain telling them honestly that they are fighting 
for the Cause of Impressment. That having been most of 
them impressed themselves, in the face of every principle of 
Freedom, of which their Country boasted, they must all be 
sensible how just and how glorious the right of the Press-gang 
is, and how clear the right of practising it upon American Sail- 
ors as well as upon themselves must be. I think they will 
not very readily recur to such arguments. — No doubt they 
will keep them at their guns with others. But there may be 
times and occasions upon which the English Seaman may be 
made to understand for what he is to fight in this War, and 
when it may have its effect upon the Spirit with which he will 
fight. The English talk of the Seduction practiced by us upon 
their Seamen. There is a seduction in the very Nature of 
this Cause, which it would be strange indeed if their 
Seamen were insensible to it. I have heard that many of 
their Seamen taken by us have shown a reluctance at being 
exchanged, from an unwillingness to be sent back to be im- 

*• In the presidential election of 1812 Vermont alone of the New England States threw 
its electoral vote in favor of Madison. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island 
and Connecticut voted for DeWitt Clinton, the candidate of the Federal party. Clinton 
carried every electoral district of Massachusetts, the total popular vote being 50,333 for 
the Clinton electors and 26,110 for the Madison electors. In the Union at large, the 
South voted in favor of Madison, moat of the North in favor of Clinton. The vote of 
Pennsylvania, — 25 for Madison — decided the election. New York threw its 29 electoral 
votes for Clinton. 



34 

pressed again. A more admirable comment upon the charac- 
ter of the War could not be imagined. Prisoners who deem it 
a hardship to be exchanged! With what heart can they fight 
for the principle which is to rivet the chains of their own ser- 
vitude? 

I have been reading a multitude of speculations in the 
English Newspapers, about the capture of their two Frigates 
Guerriere and Macedonian. They have settled it that the 
American forty fours are line of battle-ships in disguise, and 
that henceforth all the frigates in the British Navy are to have 
the prilivege of running away from theml^o This of itself is 
no despicable result of the first half-year of War. Let it be 
once understood as a matter of course that every single frigate 
in the British Navy is to shrink from a contest with the large 
American frigates, and even this will have its effect upon the 
Spirits of the Tars on both sides. It differs a little from the 
time when the Guerriere went out with her name painted in 
Capitals on her fore top-sail, in search of our disguised line 
of battle-ship President.^^ 

But the English Admiralty have further ordered the im- 
mediate construction of seventeen new frigates, to be disguised 
line of Battle ships too. Their paticular destination is to be 
to fight the Americans. Their numbers will be six to one 
against us, unless we too taking the hint from our success can 
build frigate for frigate and meet them on their own terms; 
in which case if our new ships are commanded and officered, 
and manned like the Constitution and United States and 



»oA circular to British naval oflScers waa at this time issued by the Secretary of the 
Admiralty. It read as follows: "My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty having 
received intelligence that several of the American ships of war are now at sea, I have their 
Lordships' commands to acquaint you therewith, and that they do not conceive that any 
of his Majesty's frigates should attempt to engage, single-handed, the larger class of 
American ships, which, though they may be called frigates, are of a size, complement and 
weight of metal much beyond that class and more resembling line-of-battle ships. 

"In the event of one of his Majesty's frigates imder your orders falling in with one of 
these ships, his captain should endeavor in the first instance to secure the retreat of his 
Majesty's ship; but if he finds that he has an advantage in sailing he should endeavor to 
manoeuvre, and keep company with her, without coming to action, in the hope of falling 
in with some other of his Majesty's ships, with whose assistance the enemy might be 
attacked with a reasonable hope of success. 

" It is their Lordships' further directions that you make this known as soon as possible 
to the several captains commanding his Majesty's ships. " (The Croker Papers, I, 44.) 

In a paper prepared by him on the American Navy, Rear-Admiral French Ensor 
Chadwick pronounces this "the finest tribute ever paid any navy." (Proceedings of 
the Massachusetts Historical Society for November, 1912, vol. 46, pp. 207-208.) 

*i This incident resulted from what was known as the affair of the Little Belt, already 
referred to. It was alleged at the time that the commander of the President had mistaken 
the Little Belt for the Guerriere, and consequently the Captain of the Guerriere, it is said, 
subsequently had the name painted as indicated in this letter, in order that in future there 
should be no possibility of mistake. See Adams, United States, vii, 14. 



35 

Wasp,"^ I am persuaded they will in process of time gain one 
step more upon the maxims of the British Navy, and settle 
it as a principle that single English ships are not to fight 
Americans of equal force. This much I believe it will be in 
their power to do. And further I wish them never to go. 
I hope they will never catch the insolent affectation of seeking 
Battle against superior force, — An English pretension which 
has been so well chastised in the fate of their two frigates. 

Our Navy, like all our other Institutions, is formed upon the 
English model. With regard to the Navy at least the superi- 
ority of that model to all others extant is incontestible. But 
in the British Navy itself there are a multitude of abuses 
against which we may guard, and there are many improve- 
ments of which it is susceptible, and for which the field is open 
before us. Our three 44 gun ships were originally built not as 
the English pretend for line of Battle ships, but to be a little 
more than a match in force to the largest European Frigates, 
and the experience both of our partial War with France, in 
1798, and 1799 as well as of our present War with England 
has proved the wisdom of the principle upon which they were 
constructed. It has been a great and momentous question 
among our Statesmen whether we should have any Navy or 
not. It will probably still be a great question, but Great 
Britain appears determined to solve all our doubts and diffi- 
culties upon the subject. She blockades our Coast, and is 
resolved to crush us instantly upon the Ocean. We must sink 

without a struggle, under her hand, or we must have a Navy.'* 
* * * 

J. Q. A. to John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 15 February, 1813. 
***** "The War in the North of Europe is for the 
present at an end. The dissolution of the Emperor Napoleon's 
Army is so complete, that the Russians, who have entered 
Prussia and the Duchy of Warsaw, advance even in the depth 
of an extremely severe Winter, without finding an Enemy to 
oppose them. They go as friends and deliverers, and say they 
are everywhere received as such; with joy and triumph. 
Napoleon has been now nearly two Months at Paris, where a 
popular fermentation menacing the whole foundation of his 
Government is said to be not very secretly working. A Peace 



22 Reference is here made to the engagements between the frigates Constitution and 
Guerriere, August 19; between the frigates United States and Macedonian, October 25; 
and between the Wasp and the Frolic, both eighteen-gun sloops of war, October 17, — 
all in 1812. The Wasp was commanded by Captain Jacob Jones of Delaware. The 
action lasted forty-three minutes, was desperately fought, and resulted in the capture of 
the Frolic. 



36 

and Alliance both with Austria and Prussia is expected here, 
and the Negotiations though not public are believed to be far 
advanced. The Emperor Alexander is with his army in the 
Duchy of Warsaw." 

J. Q. A, to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 18 February, 1813. 
''As I shall probably not have an opportunity of dispatching 
letters for America, after that of which I now avail myself, 
at least before the expiration of the present Month, and as I 
am unwilling to break through the rule which I prescribed to 
myself of writing to you, at least once every Month, I sit down 
to repeat to you, what only three days since I wrote to my 
father, namely, that I have not seen the hand-writing of any 
one of my friends at Quincy dated later than last April." 
* * * * * "The War against the United States, appears 
to be now approved and supported by all parties in England; 
for the original Opposition to the present Administration, 
very weakly and very unjustly pledged themselves, to join 
Ministers upon this point of their policy, if the Revocation of 
the Orders in Council should not satisfy the Americans. And 
now the Ministers and their friends hold them to their word. 
Some of their Parliamentary leaders are as wrong headed, and 
stiff-necked in support of the Press-gang as the Ministry them- 
selves, and the others dare not avow the disposition to com- 
promize this point, because John Bull among his whimsies 
has taken it into his head that his Trident is at Stake upon the 
question; and they think he will look with an evil-eye upon 
any one who advises him to abandon it. Cobbett is the only 
politician among them who has boldly and explicitly told his 
Nation that they never can have a solid Peace with America 
while they practice Empressment on board of American Vessels 
at Sea. But Cobbett is out of favour with all parties, and since 
he began to speak the language of truth and justice and hu- 
manity has lost all credit with his Countrymen. As to the 
fragments struck off from the Ministry, by their internal 
collisions, such as Wellesley and Canning, who form what was 
once called in America a Quid party, they are among the bitter- 
est of our Enemies, and having been themselves the principal 
Causes of the War, very consistently say that nothing can be 
more just than a War with America now. But they are not 
at all satisfied with the conduct of the War. The Wellesley 
Gazette (the Times) abuses the Ministry for not having blown 
the American Navy to atoms, and Canning abuses them in 
Parliament for not having ravaged our Coast with fire and 
sword. They say in answer to the first that they gave orders 
to their Admirals on the American Station to burn, sink and 



37 

destroy all American vessels before the War began, and that 
they have constantly had on those American Stations, a force 
equal to seven times the whole American Navy. In answer to 
Canning, they had the grace to say, not in Parliament, but in 
the Courier, their Newspaper, that to ravage our Sea-Coast 
with fire and sword would be trespassing a little upon the laws 
of War, and that it would be spiteful. But notwithstanding 
this we may be assured they will follow Mr. Canning's pre- 
scription, if they can. 

The War against American Independence was for five years 
of its continuance one of the most popular Wars that the 
Nation ever waged; and it was seven before they could be con- 
vinced that they could not obtain by War the object of the 
War. Their real object in the present War is the dismember- 
ment of the American Union. Their professed object is the 
Press-gang. The War for the Press-gang will be as popular 
as the War against American Independence was, untill we 
can convince them that they cannot obtain by War, the object 
of the War. Were it possible to conceive that the success of 
the War, upon the Ocean, would for seven years correspond 
to that of the first six Months, my hopes would be sanguine, 
that they would eventually be completely defeated in both 
their objects, and that we should finally succeed in ours. But 
this cannot be expected. If our Country could expend in 
three years as many dollars, upon naval force, as they expend 
Pounds Sterling in one, I should hold our success for infalliale 
— but as it is the chances are too unequal. Providence may 
interpose in ways of its own to vindicate the righteous Cause, 
and I have had under my eyes the last half year a signal in- 
stance of such interposition. The Cause against the Press- 
gang is righteous if there ever was one since the hand of man 
was armed against oppression. The Cause of the Press-gang 
is doubly atrocious as a British Cause. Impressment, as a 
practice upon their own subjects and within their own Terri- 
tory, not only brands the Nation with the mark of the most 
odious despotism, but gives the lie to every pretence of Free- 
dom in their Constitution. And as if it were to show how far 
the absurdity of human iniquity could go, the Helots of Britain 
are their Sailors. The only Class of People subjected to the 
most unqualified servitude, robb'd of every right of personal 
liberty, kidnapp'd like African Negroes, without resource or 
relief in the tribunals of their Country, the out-laws of the 
Land, who have no Rights in the eyes of the Kings Judges, 
because they are stolen from their families, and employments, 
to serve the King, are precisely the Class of People who main- 
tain with their blood the power, and dignity and glory, nay, 
as their oppressors say, the existence of their Nation. They 



38 

talk of our practising seduction upon their Sailors. The charge 
is false and ridiculous. But in this War, it would be strange 
indeed, if there were not seduction to their Sailors, in the very- 
nature of our Cause. Our War is the Sailor's War; it is surely 
enough if they force their seamen to die in battle for the Press- 
gang. If their men are human beings their hearts must be 
on our side. 

The War as far as the British professions can be trusted, is 
now reduced to this single point — What its issue will be must 
be left in the hands of him who scourges the vices and crimes 
of Nations by War, and who has sent this for our Chastisement 
as well as for that of our Enemies. At the thought of what my 
Country must suffer and go through before a rational prospect 
can open of her success in this Contest, my heart would sink 
within me, but for the reliance which I place in the divine 
goodness. There are great and glorious qualities in the human 
character, which as they can unfold themselves only in times 
of difl&culty and danger, seem to make War from time to time 
a necessary evil among men. A Nation long at Peace seldom 
fails to become degraded. Symptoms of this species of Cor- 
ruption were very visible in our Country. God grant that in 
suffering the unavoidable calamities, we may recover in all 
their vigour the energies of War!" 

Mrs. John Adams to J. Q. A, 

QuiNCY, Febry 25, 1813. 
'* Upon looking over my list, I find that I have written to you 
a letter every month, since October. My last letter was in 
January 21st, written immediately after receiving yours of 
Sepbr. 21, informing me of the loss of your dear babe. I 
wrote to Mrs. Adams at the same time; the letters went in a 
cartel to Liverpool, through the kindness of a friend. * * * 
I inclose to you the result of the election for president and vice- 
president. I could fill a dozen pages with the political affairs 
of our Country, with the disasters of our Irregular Army, the 
causes which produced them, and the effects which have fol- 
lowed them. Much of this you will get from the English 
newspapers, with as much of truth and accuracy as a French 
Bulletin. I lament that much of what you ought to know 
cannot be communicated to you. The channel through which 
this letter must pass wholly forbids it. But one thing I will 
tell you, and let the loud clarion of fame proclaim to the world 
the laurels won and the victories achieved by our naval com- 
manders. First in the triumph was Captain Hull in the 
frigate Constitution, who engaged and captured the British 
frigate Guerriere, making her a wreck, was obliged to blow her 
up. Capt. Jones in the Wasp sloop of war fought, dismasted, 



39 

and took the British sloop of war the Frolic. Afterward both 
were taken by a 74. Commodore Decatur in the frigate U. S. 
captured the British frigate Macedonian, and brought her 
safely into N. York altho at a vast distance from home. Com- 
modore Bainbridge who took the command of the Constitution 
to enable Captain Hull to secure and make his own a prize, 
called the Hart, and for other private reasons; he suffered not 
the laurels won by Hull to fall upon his brow. He engaged, 
fought, and conquered the British frigate Java, but was neces- 
sitated to blow her up. Landed her officers and crew at St. 
Salvador, the Captain soon died of the wounds he received. 
I have been concise for time would fail me to detail to you how 
these conquerors have been received, and the honours which 
have been conferred upon them by Legislatures and public 
bodies in the various States. In spight of all British partial- 
ities, American Blood exults in the trophies won. Alas! Alas! 
our 74s are yet in embrio, were they as they ought to have been, 
upon the ocean the Chesapeake would not now be in a state of 
blockade by a British squadron. For with equal force we have 
proved that our Countries wrongs can and will be avenged, 
our loss has been comparatively small. 

Tell it in Britain, proclaim it to the world, that the trident 
of Neptune has bowed to the valour and genius of Columbia, 
unless a speedy peace ensue, of which I see not any prospect. 
She is raising up a power, and a force which will humble her 
pride and share the ocean with her. 

Unto that Being who governs the destiny of Nations let 
us ascribe the glory, and ask for his support and guidance in 
the war in which we have engaged. 

I could tell you a tale which would raise your blood, would 
rouse your passions, would grieve your heart, and make you 
exclaim O my native State, how art thou fallen! 

Degenerate sons, return, return or sink in oblivion! May 
the waters of Lethe pass over you!" 

J. Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Peteksburg, 27 February, 1813. 
"At length, after another interval of nearly seven Months 
since I had been favoured with the sight of a line from any of 
my friends at Quincy, yours of 29 July has come to hand. It 
is nearly seven Months old, but is more than three Months 
later than your last previous letter. * * * 
***** I have seen the English Regent's Declaration 
of War, issued according to English custom, many Months 
after the War began. It is a mawkish compound of direct 
falsehood and sophistical prevarication, but so well suited to 
English Palates that a letter from London tells me that it has 



40 

made the War with America popular, though it was not so 
before. Mr. Bull is so mortified at having been taken in by 
Jonathan's Line of Battle-ships in disguise that he is actually 
cutting doTvn seventy-four gun Ships, to disguise them into 
frigates too. A large Squadron under Lord Beauclerk is sent 
to reinforce the naval sea force in America, and spiteful as 
the idea of bombarding the American Seaports when Canning 
called for it in Parliament, was represented, it has not now been 
found reconcileable to the Laws of War, and is to be accom- 
plished. We shall see what they will gain by that. 

The success of the Russian arms, and the disasters of Lord 
Wellington, notwithstanding his famous Battle of Salamanca, 
have cooled the ardour in England for the cause of Spain. The 
noble Marquis went to Cadix to demand of the Cortes a new 
Military Organization of the whole Country, contrary to the 
Spanish Constitution, and he wrote a letter to his Ofiicers tell- 
ing them that his own army was the most disorderly and un- 
disciplined army that he ever saw. In their retreat from Bur- 
gos, they committed such horrible excesses upon the Country 
of which they were the magnanimous and disinterested defend- 
ers that the People abhorred them worse than the French. 
They say it was to save themselves from perishing by famine. 
There is danger that they will abandon the Spaniards to their 
Fate; but I hope not so soon after reproaching us, while we 
have kept Spain, and their own Army there from starving, with 
ungenerosity, for not joining them in their martial Quixotism. 

There is at present as little prospect of a general Peace in 
Europe as of a particular one, between the United States and 
England. The Russian Armies in Prussia and Poland have 
nothing now to do but to march forward. They meet no 
Enemy to oppose them. Warsaw is in their possession and Ber- 
lin will very shortly be so too ; — Perhaps is already. Napoleon 
has a decree of his Senate, placing at his disposal 350,000 men, 
but a decree of the Senate does not make them. He has abated 
much of his destinating tone towards Russia, but apparently 
nothing of his pretensions." 

J. Q. A. to Thomas Boylston Adams. 

St. Petersbukg, 3 April, 1813. 
* * * * * "The Continent of Europe is just commencing 
the progress of a Counter Revolution the end of which it is 
yet impossible to foresee. The frosts of Russia and Poland 
have struck at the roots of Napoleon's laurels and of his power. 
In September he entered Moscow as a Conqueror, and in 
March his Enemy took possession of his ''good City" of Ham- 
burg. All Germany is in combustion. Prussia has deserted 
his banners, and rallies all the remnants of her force under the 



41 

standard of Alexander. Denmark has implored Peace of 
England, her despoiler, and has been rejected. Austria ne- 
gotiates and dissembles, and aims probably to join at last the 
new Coalition against her antient foe, and France has the 
most imminent prospect of being reduced at least to her ante- 
revolutionary dimensions, and perhaps to the restoration of 
the Bourbons. Nothing less than this is now intended; and 
between this design and its accomplishment there is now noth- 
ing but the life and the Genius of Napoleon to interfere. For 
his Fortune has deserted him; and of his Genius independent 
of his Fortune, I have never entertained a very exalted opinion. 
Caesar was once in perhaps as great a strait as he now is and 
extricated himself from it. But to extricate himself he must 
possess greater resources of genius than were employed by 
Caesar, and I do not yet believe that he has them to display. " 

J. Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

' St. Petersburg, 7 April, 1813. 
" I know not whether it was generosity, or any other virtue, 
or merely a disposition to receive the postage, that induced 
the transmission of your favour of 30 December to Mr. 
Williams at London; for by him it was kindly forwarded to 
me, and on the first day of this month, to my inexpressible 
joy, came to hand. It was but so short a time before that I 
had received your letter of 29 July! — and excepting that, not 
a line from Q^incy later than April of the last year. This 
last letter had apparently been opened, although the impres- 
sion of your Seal upon the wax was restored — ^A circumstance 
which indicates that it was done in England, where they still 
affect the appearance of not breaking seals at the Post-Office. 
On this Continent they are less scrupulous about forms. 
When they open letters, they break the seals, and do not take 
the trouble of restoring them. They send them open to their 
address. It reminds me of an anecdote I have lately met 
with of Prince Kaunitz when he was prime Minister of the 
Empress Maria Theresa. One of his clerks whose business it 
was to copy the opened letters, coming to foreign Ministers 
at Vienna, in the hurry of reclosing a dispatch to one of the 
Envoys, sent him his copy instead of the original. The En- 
voy went to Prince Kaunitz, showed him the copy that he had 
received, and complained that the original was withheld from 
him. The Prince immediately sent for the Clerk, severely 
reprimanded him in the Envoy^s presence for his blunder, 
and directed him to bring instantaneously the original des- 
patch. The Clerk brought it accordingly, and the Prince gave 
it to the Envoy, with many apologies for the trouble occasioned 



42 
♦ 

him by the Clerk's mistake, and assurances of his hope that it 
would never occur again. 

In the present state of the Relations between us and Britain, 
I have nothing to say, if they open letters to or from me which 
they get fairly into their hands. But I should think it more 
creditable to them if they did not attempt the imposition of 
restoring the impression of the Seals. * * * * 
***** Of Peace, unless eventually produced by a 
course and through a channel at which I have already hinted, 
I now utterly despair. Our new 74's and frigates will only 
protract and obstruct every prospect of Peace. The prodigies 
performed by our Apology for a Navy (to call it a Navy is too 
ridiculous) have had the same effect — and so have our disgraces 
in Canada. There is a National Spirit among the British 
which such successes and such defeats grasp at with equal 
eagerness to unite all parties against us. We are a more vir- 
tuous and less vicious People than the British; but of that 
National Spirit which is a political virtue of the highest order, 
we have much less than they. Under our present Adminis- 
tration I have no fear that we shall subscribe to a disgraceful 
and degrading Peace, and from the temper of the British Gov- 
ernment at this time, there is little expectation of any dis- 
position in them for any other. 

The conflagration of Moscow, and the sufferings of the Rus- 
sian Empire under the formidable invasion of the last Summer 
were awful visitations of Heaven, but they have been succeed- 
ed by prosperities and successes without example in modem 
History. The iron Crown of Napoleon, and his Imperial 
Crown, too, will henceforth be but crowns of thorns to him. 
His Violence and Injustice are recoiling upon his own head. 
Russia, Poland, Prussia, and all the North of Germany are 
delivered from his power, and the Cities of Lubeck and Ham- 
burg which had been formally annexed to the French Empire 
are already in Possession of the Russians. His internal Gov- 
ernment is convulsed even at Paris, and the pretensions of 
the House of Bourbon are again advanced, under the patron- 
age of the British Government, and perhaps of Russia. The 
situation of France has never been so precarious and in such 
imminent danger since the Duke of Brunswick's invasion of 
Champagne in 1792. And instead of universal monarchy, or 
even the preponderancy of power in Europe, she has now the 
prospect before her of being called again to contend for her 
antient boundaries. Whether the happiness of mankind or 
the Peace of the world will gain anything by this new Revolu- 
tion in the affairs of Europe is yet among the secrets of Provi- 
dence. That Russia should maintain and that Germany 
should recover their Independence; and that Spain, Portugal 



43 

and Italy should have the same good fortune in the South is 
undoubtedly desirable, but when Ambition is controlled only 
by Ambition, and one boundless lust of domination is only 
exchanged for another, Humanity gains very little by the 
substitution. At present Russia is the arbitress of Europe. 
Of her Wisdom and Moderation I am not inclined to doubt. 
She has gloriously stood the trial of Adversity, which was 
severe but short. She has now the stronger test of Prosperity 
to endure. The character of her Sovereign promises much for 
the relief of our species. I trust he will not catch the infection 
of Passions which would only prolong the scenes of horror and 
devastation that have so long been desolating Europe." 

J. Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersbtjkg, May 1, 1813. 
* * * * * "I have already learnt from English News- 
papers the arrival at New York of the Freeling Cartal in which 
Mr. Harris was a passenger. Whatever the President may 
determine concerning the dispatches of which he was the 
bearer, it will at least be decisive with regard to our prospects 
for the present year. That we should stay here is the least 
probable as well as the least desirable of the alternatives that 
I can anticipate. After my experience of four successive 
Russian Winters, I believe there is no person accustomed to 
mild climates, who would not be desirous of an opportunity 
to assure himself once more that in the changes of the seasons 
there is such a thing as Summer. We have formed no social 
attachments that can make us much regret the Country; and 
I have no employment here which can even afford me the 
consolation of being useful to my own. 

On the Continent of Europe, the year upon which we have 
entered promises to be as eventful and threatens to be as 
sanguinary as its last predecessor. But the scene of action 
and the cause are totally changed. The dream of universal 
Monarchy in France, which may have tickled the imagination 
of the Corsican, and which has so hideously haunted the 
fancies of his Enemies is forever past. France will not soon 
again appear in the character of an invader. She is herself 
invaded. The Hanseatic Cities are already lost. Holland 
in a few Months, perhaps in a few weeks will share the same 
fate. Prussia, from the most subservient of her allies, has 
become the most exasperated of her Enemies. Denmark has 
deserted her and is before this numbered with her foes. Aus- 
tria will in all probability very soon join the same side. A 
Swedish, Russian and British force commanded by a French 
General is destined to recover Hanover, and to restore Holland 
to the house of Orange; while at the same time Louis 18 has 



44 

issued a Declaration claiming anew the throne of France as 
his inheritance. To oppose all this Napoleon has little but 
the resources of a Genius, great only by success, and the rem- 
nant of a shattered military reputation. It is rumoured that 
he is collecting a large army upon the Rhine, but his troops 
will be mostly raw and inexperienced, and all of them dis- 
heartened. His present Disasters are so entirely imputable 
to himself that it can scarcely be said Fortune has abandoned 
him. There is so little in his personal character that can take 
hold of the affections of mankind that his destruction which is 
as certain as any human event that can be foretold, will leave 
no sympathizing feelings behind. But what will be the 
Fortunes of France, it is not so easy to foresee. If she takes 
back the Bourbons, she must take them from the hands of 
her Enemies. And with the Bourbons she must take condi- 
tions the most humiliating to her Pride; and at the price of 
sacrifices the most fatal to her Power. This is a point of view, 
by no means grateful to contemplation, but which cannot be 
overlooked. Louis 18 in his Declaration has promised to 
abolish the Laws of Conscription. A promise certainly well 
suited to the purposes of England; but which if accomplished, 
will make the Bourbons themselves when restored the mere 
puppets of foreign Powers, and France alternately a prey to 
all her neighbors. 

The reflection of the present State of things upon our own 
concerns is not auspicious. In the Spring-tide of success 
which has flowed with such an impetuous torrent in favour of 
the English almost from the moment of our Declaration of 
War, they have been gathering spirit and inveteracy, and 
unanimity, so that now the language of all their parties is, 
that we must be chastised into submission. The loss of three 
frigates and of more than five hundred Merchant vessels in 
six Months has only stimulated them to revenge, and our 
shameful failures in Canada have made them perfectly secure 
in the only quarter where they could have any reason to fear 
us. They have blockaded all our Ports from the Mississippi 
to New York inclusively, and the rest I suppose will soon fol- 
low. I hope our Country will prove herself equal to the trial 
that awaits her. — Peace is not to be expected. 

After a Winter more severe than I ever witnessed even in 
this Country we have had the compensation of an earlier 
Spring than is usual. The month of March was moderate and 
mild, and the river Neva broke up on the 11th of April New 
Style. We still have occasional frost and snow, but the Sum- 
mer is always reckoned from the dissolution of the River. 
This Event has always before been peculiarly interesting to us, 
because it opened our direct Communications with America. 



45 

Every week brought numbers of our Countrymen, and 
intelligence from our friends was always fresh. Our prospects 
have changed, and we shall see nothing of the American flag 
this Season. The opening of the River is accordingly a matter 
of indifference to us." 

J. Q. A. to Thomas Boylston Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 21 June, 1813. 
* * * * * ^'Lemomentou je parle, est deja loin de moi.'^ 
This would be the proper motto for the History of Europe 
during the last twelve Months. The succession of Events has 
been as momentous and rapid as it ever was at any period in 
the annals of the world. On the 24th of last June Napoleon 
at the head of at least 300,000 men entered upon the Russian 
Territory — in September he was at Moscow. In December 
he reached Paris, almost literally alone, and his immense host 
were fattening the crows, and bleaching the frozen fields of 
Russia and of Poland. In March the Russians were at Berlin 
and Dresden, Hamburg and Lubeck. On the first and second 
of May he met them at Lutzen, and at this moment, if for 
want of better information, I can believe common Report, he 
is in or on the borders of Silesia, with an armistice concluded, 
and a Russian and a Prussian Plenipotentiary at his Camp. 
Prussia from his Ally has become his most inveterate foe. 
Austria I am very positively assured has made the same evo- 
lution. But whether she has actually commenced hostilities 
or not is a problem which time only can solve. The public 
here are assured in the Gazettes that she has; while in the 
same Gazettes other Articles aflB.rm that she is in concert 
with him, to convoke a General Congress of all Europe and 
the United States of America, to negotiate a general Peace. 
Hamburg in the course of a month has passed successively 
into the hands of Russian, Danish, Swedish, Danish again, 
and finally French troops. Sweden with a French General 
at the Head of her army, is in English pay to invade France. 
Denmark has been wavering between France and the Coalition, 
ready to take the side of the allies; spurned back into the arms 
of France, and perhaps at this moment bombarded, and Con- 
greve rocketed again into submission to the allies. All is yet 
a chaos of Confusion; through which the Elements are barely 
discernible of a plan attempted to be organized in concert 
between Russia, Sweden and England; and into which Austria, 
Prussia, and Denmark were to be drawn. Its first object was 
the dissolution of the Rhenish Confederation, and a reorgan- 
ization of the German Empire. Then it would seem Holland 
was to be restored to the House of Orange, and the Bourbons 
were to have as much of old France as a dismemberment to be 



46 

limited by the moderation of the allies might leave her. The 
two Battles, of Lutzen, and of Bautzen," though both officially 
declared here Victories of the allies, appear to have interposed 
some little obstacle to the immediate execution of this great 
plan. To the utter astonishment of all Europe, after a series 
of disasters which would have overwhelmed in irretrievable 
ruin the oldest and mightiest monarchy of the Globe, Napoleon 
returned to the field, as formidable as if no misfortune had 
befallen him. In the first Battle, he fought under great dis- 
advantages, and with an inferior force. The victory was 
perhaps equivocal on the day of the battle, but the next day 
the Russians and Prussians retreated. Three weeks after- 
wards, having received a reinforcement of 30,000 men, they 
fought another Battle of three days, the 19th, 20th, and 21st 
of May; upon the first and second days of which they again 
claim the victory; but acknowledge a retreat on the third 
A full Month has passed since the last event, and nothing 
official has been published here of subsequent occurrences. 
The rumor of an Armistice is very general, but the fact is not 
publicly acknowledged. It is not the custom here to publish 
any news but such as are agreeable. Of the consequences of 
the battle of Lutzen, nothing was known here untill English 
Newspapers came, containing the French official Relations. 
From the postponement of public acknowledgement that an 
armistice has been concluded, it is supposed that it was only 
for a few days, and that a renewal of hostilities will ensue. 
Great reinforcements were marching to join the Russian army. 
Austrian troops were assembling in Bohemia, to join the allies; 
and the success of a last effort to whip Denmark into the ranks 
of the Coalition was to be waited for. We know not even the 
time to which the Armistice was limited. The Reports are 
40 hours — 3 days — 15 days — 40 days — and we know not where 
the headquarters of either of the armies were." 

J. Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 19 July, 1813. 
:(( 4c * * * ♦ * "There are many circumstances which 
indicate a probability that an effort is now making to effect 
a general Peace in Europe. In the course of the last Winter, 
after the tremendous Catastrophe of the immense army that 



** Lutzen, fought May 2, 1813, near Leipsic, Saxony, between the French under Na- 
poleon and the allies, Prussian and Russian. The French greatly predominated in niun- 
bers, and claimed the victory; which, however proved fruitless. 

Bautzen, fought May 21, 1814, between the allies and the French, at a point some thirty 
miles east of Dresden, and about one hundred and fifty miles from Lutzen. It was 
another nominal French victory. In these two engagements the loss of Napoleon's 
army is computed as having been between forty and fifty thousand men. 



47 

had invaded Russia, Austria offered her mediation to all the 
belligerent powers, and from having been an auxiliary to 
France, assumed a neutral position. The mediation was 
immediately accepted by France. It was not positively 
rejected by the others, but was treated as subordinate to an- 
other Negotiation to draw Austria into the new Coalition 
against France. Whether Austria had really promised to 
join the Coalition, or had only held out flattering hopes which 
the sanguine temper of the times had received, as promises, 
certain it is that England, Russia, Prussia and Sweden did in 
the month of April expect with undoubting Confidence the 
Co-operation of Austria, to dissolve the Confederation of the 
Rhine; to recover Hanover and Holland; and to circumscribe 
France within her antient boundaries, if not even to restore 
the House of Bourbon. The Battle of Lutzen was claimed 
by both parties as a Victory, and was here celebrated as such 
by a Te Deum. But in its consequences it was the most 
important Victory ever won by Bonaparte — for it proved to 
all Europe that France was still able to cope with her Enemies, 
and even to make head against them. A second Battle three 
weeks after had a similar and more unequivocal result. Be- 
tween the first and second Battles Napoleon had proposed 
that a Congress should be assembled at Prague in Bohemia, 
to which all the powers at War, including the United States of 
America, should be invited to send Plenipotentiaries for the 
purpose of concluding a general Peace; and he offered to stip- 
ulate an Armistice, during the Negotiation. After the second 
Battle, Russia and Prussia, with the concurrence of Austria, 
accepted the proposition for an Armistice, limited however 
to the term of six weeks, probably with a view to receive the 
answer from England, whether she should choose to be rep- 
resented at the Congress or not. This Armistice is now on the 
point of expiring, but is said to have been prolonged for six 
weeks more. In the meantime Napoleon has quartered his 
army upon the Territory of his Enemy in Silesia, is levying 
a contribution upon Hamburg of about ten Millions of Dollars, 
is doubly fortifying all his positions upon the Elbe, and receiv- 
ing continual reinforcements to be prepared for renewing an 
offensive campaign. He has made sure of the aid and support 
of Denmark and Saxony, and strongly confirmed Austria in 
her propensities to neutrality. If the War should be renewed 
his prospects, though infinitely below those with which he 
invaded Russia, last Summer, will be far above those with 
which he entered upon the present Campaign in April. If 
the Congress should meet he will not have it in his power to 
give the law to Europe; but the Peace must be the effect of 
reciprocal and important concessions. 



48 

There has nothing occurred since the commencement of 
the French Revolution which has occasioned such astonish- 
ment throughout Europe as this state of things. There are 
many examples in History of the extraordinary defeat and 
annihilation of immensely powerful armies. But the reappear- 
ance of a second overpowering host, wtihin five Months after 

the dissolution of the first, is I believe without a parallel.^' 
* * * * 

J. Q. A. to Thomas Boylston Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 7 August, 1813. 
***** "There has been at Midsummer a feeble 
attempt, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, the pre- 
tence of an attempt for the negotiation of a general Peace in 
Europe. It immediately succeeded the unexpected issue of the 
two Battles of Lutzen and Wiirschen with which the Northern 
campaign of the present year commenced. Austria was with 
one hand offering the olive branch as Mediator, and with the 
other raising a most formidable armament to join the Coalition 
in an Alliance offensive and defensive against France. Her 
preparations were not quite completed, when Napoleon rushed 
into the field with so much precipitation and effect after the 
disasters of the last Winter. The two Battles had weakened 
and exhausted both the belligerent parties so much that a time 
for breathing from the work of butchery was necessary to 
both. Austria then in her mediating character talked of 
Peace. Napoleon very readily answered Peace. The allies 
strained so hard at the word that they have not yet distinctly 
pronounced it, but they agreed to an Armistice, — first for 30 
hours — then for forty days, and finally for three weeks longer. 
The parties have all been employing the interval in prepara- 
tions to renew the War, in which Austria is now said to be 
ready to take her part. The term of the Armistice is six days 
Notice from the 10th of August, but we are told the hostilities 
between France and Austria will begin before that date. They 
may have begun at the moment while I am writing. The 
English victory in Spain has doubtless hastened the resolution 
of Austria to drop the Mask of Mediation. The storm is now 
bursting upon France in all its fury. It is however so late in 
the Season, that no very important progress is likely to be 
made by either party, in the short remnant of the present 
Season. None of them will I believe be ambitious of another 
Winter Campaign. 

We are anxiously waiting for intelligence from our own Coun- 
try — the latest we have is the unpleasant account of the loss 
of the Chesapeake Frigate. As usual we receive it first in its 
English garb, which we suppose to be as all our experience war- 



49 

rants us in expecting, falsely coloured. It would be presump- 
tuous to hope, and perhaps worse than idle to wish that in 
every contest with such an Enemy upon the Ocean we should 
be blessed with a triumph; but unless the English narratives 
of this affair are gross misrepresentations, there must have 
been some mismanagement or want of skill on our part, to 
which they were more indebted for the victory than to their 
prowess, or even to the unfortunate chances of War. The 
capture of the Guerriere, the Macedonian, and the Java were 
obviously accomplished by good conduct no less than by val- 
our. I hope and believe that our gallant naval Wariors will 
not suffer themselves to be elated even by their unparalleled 
successes, into rashness — that in every defeat as well as in 
every victory they will find a lesson to make them more and 
more formidable to the foe. How formidable they are al- 
ready needs no other proof than the riot of exultation which 
the news of the Chesapeake^s capture excited in England. 
Among the many motives which I have for lamenting the 
War in which we are involved, I have one great source of con- 
solation. There are energies in the Constitution of Man which 
a long protracted Peace always weakens, and sometimes ex- 
tinguishes altogether. Occasional War is one of the rigorous 
instruments in the hands of Providence to give tone to the 
character of Nations. We had in America too much of 'Hhe 
cankering of a calm World and a long Peace. " As Providence 
has seen fit now to visit us with the Calamity of War, it be- 
hooves us all, and most especially those whose opinions and 
examples have the greatest influence over those of the Nation, 
to direct the public Spirit towards those Virtues which it is 
the peculiar attribute of War to display. Of these, cool and 
deliberate Valour is the first and closely connected with it is 
the persevering Fortitude ''not to be overcome'^ — the stead- 
fastness in adversity, which is superior to evil Fortune. We 
have a powerful, stubborn and insolent Enemy to deal with. 
The Event is with God — may it be the triumph of eternal 
Justice, and propitious to our Country!" 

J. Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 23 August, 1813. 
* * * * * "We are indeed never long without news of 
some kind or other from the United States; but the channel of 
its conveyance is such that it is not always welcome. The 
English Newspapers are always ready to tell us what we should 
desire not to know — they are seldom in haste to report any- 
thing that can be agreeable to us. We have had one.oppor- 
tunity of hearing directly from the United States since the 
arrival of the Envoys. A vessel was dispatched from New 



50 

York in June, probably with English Passports, to bring 
General Moreau to Europe. He arrived at Gothenburg, 
about the 25th of July, and proceeded from thence to the 
Emporer Alexander's Head-Quarters. A Mr. Swienin, a 
Gentleman attached to the Russian Legation in America, 
came with him, and brought letters and Gazettes to 22 June. 
We had already heard by the way of England of the loss of 
the Chesapeake Frigate^* — Prodigies cannot become objects of 
common occurrence. Our naval successes had so far exceeded 
all rational anticipation that we were in danger of being too 
much elated by them. The Fortune of War will maintain its 
supremacy and even where there is proportion between the 
forces of contending parties will favour sometimes one side 
and sometimes the other. Our Officers and Seamen have 
proved to us, and to the world, what they can and will do, if 
their Country will support them. But we are not to expect 
with five Frigates to make head permanently against the 
British Navy. 

We still continue to furnish materials for the merriment of 
mankind upon the land. 25 At the commencement of the War of 
our Revolution we committed blunders, and met with disasters 
enough; but there was more excuse for them then than there is 
now. Our means and resources were incomparably less, and 
we had infinitely more to accomplish than we have at present. 
We did then learn the art of War in the school of misfortune. 
A whole Generation has since passed away, and we have the 
same unpalatable lesson to learn again. The school has amply 
proved itself to be the same — God grant that its severe in- 
struction may not be lost upon us! 

The armistice in the North of Europe, which was agreed 
upon at the beginning of June, has been successively prolonged 



2* The action between the frigates Chesapeake and Shannon took place off Boston Light, 
Sunday, May 30, 1813, resulting in the capture of the American frigate. 

'5 Reference is here made to the badly conceived, inefl&ciently conducted and wholly 
futile military operations on the Northwestern frontier in Ohio and Indiana, and on the 
Lakes and upper St. Lawrence, during the eariy months of 1813. Thirty years had then 
elapsed since the close of the War of Independence; and, in 1813, the national military 
service was gradually freeing itself from the inheritance of traditions and superannuated 
incompetents handed down from, or survivals of that struggle. A younger and more 
energetic set of leaders, of whom Winfield Scott was typical at the North as was Andrew 
Jackson at the South, were coming to the front. Their presence made itself felt during 
the last half of 1813, and throiighout later military operations. These operations are, 
historically speaking, now forgotten; but this correspondence is of value as illustrating 
contemporaneously the effect, on an American living abroad in an official capacity, 
produced by the performances of a small but efficient naval, and an equally small but 
inefficient military organization set suddenly in action under organic conditions tradi- 
tional in the United States. Half a century later the country went through a similar 
experience on a vastly increased scale, working out results through an almost incalcul- 
able waste of money and human lives. 



51 

untill the 16th of this Month, and although a full week has 
elapsed since the expiration of that term, it is yet unknown 
here whether a further prolongation of it has taken place, or 
whether the hostilities have recommenced. The armistice 
itself was very generally disapproved, and the passion for the 
renewal of the War is extreme. As the co-operation of Austria 
is relied upon with certainty, the interval during which hos- 
tilities have been suspended was employed in securing it. You 
cannot be surprized at the bitterness and exasperation against 
the French, and especially against Napoleon, which prevails 
in this Country; and as his last Winter's disasters had inspired 
a very sanguine hope of his destruction, they are now very 
unwilling to relinquish it. The first operations were so much 
more energetic and successful than had been foreseen by any 
body that for a time they threatened the disappointment of 
his Enemies; but the English Victory in Spain, and the entrance 
of Lord Wellington's army on the French Territory26 has revived 
every flattering expectation, and placed his fate and that of 
France again upon the Chapter of Accidents." * * * * 

J,Q, A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St, Petersburg, 21 September, 1813. 
"This day two Months have elapsed since Mr. Gallatin 
and Mr. Bayard arrived^^ and delivered to me your favours of 
5 and 23 April. Nothing later from you has yet come to hand. 
Very shortly after their arrival the ship Hannibal, belonging to 
Mr. Astor of New York arrived at Gothenburg. This vessel 
was furnished with a British licence with a permission even to 
bring a Cargo, and to carry one back in return — all in Consider- 
ation of a passenger whom she conveyed to Europe. The 
passenger was General Moreau. She sailed from New York 
the 22d of June, and he landed at Gothenburg the 25th of 
July. One of his fellow passengers who had a special charge 
to accompany him, wrote a letter to a friend here, which I 
have heard read, expressing an opinion that the voyage had 
been so short and prosperous, by the particular smiles of 
Providence upon the purpose for which he came. From Gothen- 
burg General Moreau crossed the Baltic, and landed at Stral- 



M Wellington had defeated the French at Vittoria, June 22d; and in the battle of the 
Pyrenees, August 4. He did not, however, cross the Bidosa, entering France, until 
October 7. 

" In consequence of an offer of mediation between the United States and Great Britain 
made by Alexander II in March, 1813, Messrs. James A. Bayard, of Delaware, and Albert 
Gallatin of Pennsylvania, at the time Secretary of the Treasury in the Madison cabinet, 
were appointed special commissioners to carry on the proposed negotiation. They sailed 
from Newcastle, Delaware, May 9 and reached St. Petersburg, July 21. Mr. Adams 
was associated with them in the commission. 



52 

sund, where he had an affecting interview with the Crown 
Prince of Sweden, another French General now commanding 
an army against France. General Moreau then proceeded to 
the Emperor Alexander's Head-Quarters, and arrived at 
Prague, precisely at the moment when the two Emperors of 
Russia, and of Austria, were meeting to commence the Cam- 
paign of the new Coalition against Napoleon. This was the 
15th of August. The 16th was the day upon which the Armis- 
tice was to terminate; and on the 10th the Austrian declara- 
tion of War against France had been delivered to the French 
Ambassador at Prague. On the 17th hostilities were to com- 
mence. General Moreau entered the Russian service, and was 
appointed first Aid de Camp General to the Emperor Alex- 
ander. On the 22d he wrote from the Emperor's Head-Quar- 
ters a letter, which I have read. It said that he had come to 
fight against Bonaparte, and that he should do it without the 
slightest repugnance. That if he contributed to the overthrow 
of Bonaparte he should have the thanks of France as well as 
of the rest of Europe. That if the Coalition had destroyed 
Robespierre, France would have thanked them for it. That 
the Banner is of little consequence when a man succeeds. 
Three days afterwards the allied Austrian Russian and Prus- 
sian main Army invaded Saxony from Bohemia, and on the 
26th of August they were at the gates of Dresden. On the 
27th Napoleon with 100,000 men went out from Dresden and 
gave them Battle. A Cannon-Bali took both the feet of 
General Moreau from under him, and shattered both his legs 
so that on the same day he was obliged to imdergo the ampu- 
tation of them both. The movements of the armies made it 
necessary to remove him in this Condition to Toplitz, where he 
died on the 2d of this Month, greatly regretted by the Sover- 
eign to whom his services had just been devoted, and at whose 
side he fell. 

He was in arms against his native Country. Although I 
do not Subscribe to the British doctrine of unalienable alle- 
giance in the extent to which they wish to drive it in their 
disputes and Wars with us, I do consider that very great 
and weighty causes are essential to justify a Man for bearing 
arms against his native Country. That there were causes 
sufficient for his justification is to say the least extremely 
questionable. He probably was not formally bound in Alle- 
giance to Napoleon, and might perhaps have cause of com- 
plaint against his Country. But from the time of his first 
participation in the intrigues to restore the Bourbons in 1795 
and his accusation of Pichagru, with whom he had been con- 
cerned in them, I have always ^considered him as a man who 
thought success the only standard of virtue. This is always 



53 

the maxim of wavering, unsteady characters. It is a principle 
in itself so loose and unsettled that it almost always finishes 
by betraying those who confide in it. Moreau has often been 
heard to declare that he never would take up arms against 
France. He had declined proposals previously made to him, 
when the prospect of success was not so bright. With the 
change of his Country's Fortune, his aversion to fight against 
her disappears. He comes five thousand Miles to join the 
standard of her Enemies; and one of the first Cannon-Bails 
that is fired sends him to his Account, a memorable warning 
to others not to judge of the moral merit of the Banner, by 
success. Eight days after he was dead a long elaborate article 
in the Gazette of this City assured the world that Providence 
had preserved the life of Moreau through thousands of dangers, 
in Battles, through conspiracies, amidst plagues, and over 
Oceans, to make him the instrument of some great and extra- 
ordinary purpose of beneficence to mankind. 

Providence did not intend to make him any longer the in- 
strument of any purpose, either merciful or afflictive. But it 
has manifested in the most unequivocal manner the intention 
of turning the tide of success. If success were the standard 
of excellence what mortal since the Creation of the World had 
for a compass of twenty years such signal proofs of the favour 
of Providence as Napoleon. He too fancied himself more 
than mortal. He dreamt that he was the dispenser of destiny 
to mankind. It would seem that even yet he has not awaked 
from his dream. He left one immense army to fatten the 
region kites of Russia, and another is now perishing under his 
hands, by the sword of his Enemies and by famine. All 
Europe is now conjured against him. His inflexible Spirit 
has bid defiance to Austria, in addition to all those he had 
before. But his means of resistance are sinking under him, 
and since the renewal of the War he has been defeated in al- 
most every quarter. His armies are disheartened. He is 
surrounded with disaffection and treachery. His Enemies 
are flushed with success; embittered by the remembrance of 
former losses, and struggling with desperation for their own 
existence. "What is it, (says the son of Sirach) if one be 
highly famed? yet is it known that he is but a man; neither 
may he contend with him that is mightier than he." 

Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard are still here, waiting for a 
definitive answer from England, whether the British Govern- 
ment will treat under the Russian Mediation or not. In the 
meantime the Accounts from America leave them in suspense 
and under an uncertainty whether the Senate have confirmed 
the nominations to this Commission. The news which we 
receive respecting the progress of the War is less favourable 



54 

than we had anticipated, and we hear of the opposition from 
Massachusetts in all its vehemence. I approve much of your 
principle never to despond, and hope for an improving fu- 
turity. " * * * * 

J, Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 25 October, 1813. 
* * * * * "Although I am duly sensible to the gentle- 
manly politeness of Sir John Sherbrook,28 in permitting my 
letters to be transmitted to you, I do not wish to give him the 
trouble to peruse any more of my Epistles, or to write any 
adapted for his perusal. Yet I see not why I should withhold 
my Opinions upon some of the subjects mentioned in your 
letters. For instance — 

I am not of Opinion with the Senate of Massachusetts that 
the present War is waged on the part of the United States 
without justifiable Cause — as little am I of their Opinion that 
it has been prosecuted in a manner indicating that Conquest 
and Ambition are its real motives.^^ But if I concurred with 
them in both those Opinions, I should still from the bottom of 
my Soul disclaim the conclusion which the said Honourable 
Senate have drawn from it and declared to be their sense — 
to wit that it is not becoming a Moral and Religious People 
to express any approbation of Military or Naval Exploits, 
which are not immediately connected with the defence of our 
Sea-Coast and Soil. 

A Moral and Religious People are bound in sacred duty to 
express approbation of military or naval exploits performed 
in their service even although the Senate of Massachusetts 
should think the War unjust — even though the War should 
be really unjust — provided that they who performed the 
exploits believed it to be just. The Virtue of all Action de- 
pends upon the motives of the actor, and it is neither moral 



*8 Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. Subsequently 
(1816-1818) he was Captain General and Governor in Chief of Canada. At the time in 
question he was very active in the performance of his duties in connection with British 
military and naval operations in the war with the United States. 

2" Reference is here made to a report drawn up by Josiah Quincy, then a member of the 
Senate of Massachusetts, concluding as follows: "And to the end that all misrepresen- 
tations on this subject may be obviated, — 

Resolved, as the sense of the Senate of Massachusetts, that in a war like the present, 
waged without justifiable cause, and prosecuted in a manner which indicates that con- 
quest and ambition are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious people 
to express any approbation of military or naval exploits which are not immediately con- 
nected with the defence of our sea-coast and soil." 

The particular naval exploit in question was the engagement between the sloop-of-war 
Hornet, commanded by Captain James Lawrence, and the sloop-of-war Peacock, off the 
Demarara River, Febniary 24, 1813. The Hornet had sunk the Peacock as the result of 
one broadside. 



55 

nor religious to take Mr. Quincy's opinion as to the Justice 
of the Cause for a standard to measure the merit of exploits 
achieved by Hull, Decatur, and Bainbridge. There is a Book 
much esteemed by moral and religious men, which says ''who 
art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own Mas- 
ter he standeth or falleth. "^o if i could degrade myself in my 
own mind, and sink deep enough into the kennels of faction 
to embrace the opinion that the redemption of my sea-faring 
Countrymen from the accursed oppression of British Press- 
gangs is not a justifiable cause of War, I should still think it 
possible that other men, quite as patriotic as myself might 
be of a different opinion. And when I saw such men display- 
ing Heroic Virtue in support of their Country's Cause and 
sealing the sincerity of their belief with their blood, I should 
feel and would express approbation of their exploits, unless 
with the loss of all sense of my Country's Rights I had also 
lost all sense of Morals, Religion and Truth. 

I had seen some weeks since in the English Newspapers this 
pious Resolution; but I never thought much of its ingenuity, 
even as a party measure — I knew very well that it could dis- 
grace none but those who voted for it. I knew very well that 
if the exploits should continue to be achieved, the Moral and 
Religious People would not ask Mr. Quincy or the Senate of 
Massachusetts for permission to express their approbation of 
them; and if the deed of glory was performed, I cared very 
little whether Mr. Quincy or the Senate of Massachusetts 
expressed their approbation of it or not. The approbation 
which avowedly hangs the Virtue of one man upon the motives 
of another is too worthless to be an object of desire to men of 
real Honour, Morals, or Religion. 

Since I began this letter, I have seen the National Intelli- 
gencers of 3 and 5 August containing all the proceedings of 
the U. S. Senate upon the nominations to the Russian Mission; 
and the projected Mission to Sweden. The situation in which 
these transactions place us is a little awkward; but we have yet 
no official information of the Event. We have no reason to 
expect that the British Government will treat at all under the 
Mediation; but Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard have hitherto 
been waiting here for a final answer from England, which 
has not yet been received. They have at their disposal the 
ship in which they came and intended to send her round to 
Gothenburg before the freezing of the river here. Her de- 
parture has however been so long delayed that it is not certain 
she will now be able to get away. We have the ground al- 
ready covered with snow, and Fahrenheit's thermometer at 



*" Romans xiv, 4, 



56 

ten degrees below the freezing point. Four of five days of 
such weather will lock us up for the winter." * * * * 

J. Q, A, to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 19 November, 1813. 
***** "Since the renewal of the War in Germany 
the odds of force have been too decisive against the French, 
and the catastrophe of their Army has been nearly equal to 
that of the last year. Napoleon himself has been defeated 
and overpowered by the four combined armies of Austria, 
Russia, Prussia and Sweden, and on the 19th of October es- 
caped from Leipzig leaving his ally the king of Saxony a Pris- 
oner, more than twenty of his Generals, and forty thousand 
men also prisoners, and 400 pieces of Cannon, Ammunition, 
baggage, etc., in proportion to the conquerors. All his other 
German Allies have deserted him and taken side against him; 
the Austrians are advancing in Italy, and Lord Wellington 
with his English, Spaniards and Portugese, are invading 
France from the Pyrenees. '^ * * * 

J, Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 17 January, 1814. 
* * * * * "Your letter of 14 July is still the latest date 
that I have directly from the United States. The only intelli- 
gence that we receive from home is that which comes to us in 
the English Newspapers; and how much of that is falsehood 
or misrepresentation we infer not only from the general charac- 
ter of all paragraph-news in the British Prints, but from the 
lies which they have told about ourselves. Some time ago, 
they stated that the American Envoys had asked to go to the 
Emperor Alexander's Head-Quarters, and had been refused — 
the Emperor alledging that there were no suitable accommo- 
dations for their Excellencies. Since then they have asserted 
that Lord Walpole had declared to this Government that the 
British Ministry having rejected their Mediation would be 
well pleased that the American Envoys should be dismissed, 
and that he was instructed to say so. Both these paragraphs 
are totally unfounded. We have good reason to conclude that 
almost all their news from America is equally distorted from 
the truth. They have not been able however to suppress the 
Event of the naval Action upon lake Erie.'^ I have not seen 
Commodore Perry's account of that affair, but it has been pub- 
lished in the English Papers, and Sir George Prevost's letter 
announcing it to his Government contains a Circumstance 



'1 The naval battle on Lake Erie, known as ''Perry's victory," took place September 
10, 1813. 



57 

certainly not intended by him to honour his Enemy, but to 
which the annals of English Naval glory will not readily fur- 
nish a parallel. He says that he has the knowledge of the 
facts, only from the American Commodore's Dispatch, pub- 
lished in the American Papers. — That he himself has no official 
Report of it, and can expect none for a very long time, the 
British Commander and all his officers having been either killed 
or so disabled that there was not one left to tell the tale. 

This same Sir G. Prevost, and Sir James L. Yeo, the Brit- 
ish Commander on Lake Ontario, in their official Reports, have 
charged Commodore Chauncey's squadron with want of spirit. 
I believe it to be a mere Hectoring Bravado on the part of 
Yeo, and I pray as fervently as Sir George himself that Yeo 
may have had his opportunity of meeting Chauncey, and not 
the opportunity of running away from it. We have the ac- 
count of Proctor's retreat, and a Report that his whole force 
excepting himself and about fifty of his men had been destroyed 
or taken. But of this hitherto no official confirmation. 

From the style and tone of Sir G. Prevost's dispatches I 
suspect he has very much exaggerated the forces of Gen. Wil- 
kinson, Hampton and Harrison, opposed against him. If he 
has not, they ought before this to have given a good account 
of him and his Province. But experience has taught me to 
distrust our land-operations, and I wait with an anxiety pre- 
dominating over my hopes, the further accounts that must 
soon be received concerning them. 

One of the advantages which we may derive from this War, 
(and from so great an evil we ought to extract all the good we 
possibly can) is that of acquiring military skill, discipline, and 
experience. No Nation can enjoy Freedom and Independence 
without being always prepared to defend them by force of 
Arms. Our military incapacity when this War commenced 
was so great that a few more years of Peace would have ex- 
tinguished every spark of martial ardour among us. All our 
first attempts upon Canada were but sources of himailiation 
to us. The performances of the year just now elapsed, so far 
as we know them, have certainly been less disgraceful, and in 
some particulars have been highly honourable; — there is yet 
much room and much occasion for improvement. God grant 
that it may not be lost. 

If I fill the pages of my letters to you with American News, 
it will indicate to you the subject nearest my heart. The great 
Scenes of action in Europe are now so remote from this Coun- 
try that the knowledge of them will reach the United States 
nearly as soon as we receive it here. After all the bloody 
Tragedies which have been acting on the face of Europe these 
two and twenty years, France is to receive the Law and Con- 



58 

stitution from the most inveterate of her Enemies. She abused 
her hour of Prosperity to such Excess, that she has not a friend 
left to support her in the reverse of her Fortune. What the 
present Coalition will do with her is yet very uncertain; but 
there is no question in my Mind that they will do with her 
what they please. ********* "Y^q have 
during the last three weeks a thorough sample of the Russian 
Winter; and one of the coldest days ever known at St. Peters- 
burg. Fahrenheit's Thermometer was 353/^ degrees below 
(67^ below the freezing point) at 6 in the Morning. 32 below 
at 2 P. M. with a bright Sunshine, and 37 below at 10 in 
the Evening. Mr. Bayard begins to think it colder here than 
at Wilmington. We are all well. " 

J.Q.A.toA.A. 

St. Petersburg, 1 February, 1814. 
* * * * * "Just before Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard 
took their departure the weather became moderate, and has 
continued so ever since. As they are travelling South, to- 
wards more merciful climates they have had the most favour- 
able time that this Winter has afforded to get beyond the reach 
of its rigours. For five and twenty days before they left us, 
with the exception of six or eight hours, one day, the ther- 
mometer had been lower than the extremest cold that I had 
witnessed in three Winters at Washington. It was the longest 
and the severest succession of Cold that I have evef known 
even here. I hope and trust that it was the Heart of the 
present Winter, and that henceforth we may expect a milder 
temperature. The Month of January has indeed according 
to our uniform experience been the most trying part of the 
Season in respect to the cold; because it is then unremitting. 
Before and afterwards there are many sharp nights, and 
occasional severe days. But not for three weeks at a time. In 
December there is more darkness than Cold; and in February 
the influence of the Sun begins to be felt. For the two Cir- 
cumstances which make it possible for human life to exist in 
a State of the atmosphere which freezes quick-silver, are that 
the sky at such times is invariably clear, and the air a perfect 
calm. 

Since I wrote you last we have no American news whatso- 
ever. But of European news there is a great abundance, and 
a very rapid succession. The allies after making Propositions 
to France for the Negotiation of Peace, and acknowledging the 
neutrality of Switzerand have nevertheless entered France by 
the way of Switzerland; taken possession of Geneva, and un- 
doubtedly, before this, of Lyons. They are also in possession 
of the whole Province of Alsaca, and Lord Wellington main- 



59 

tains himself in the neighbourhood of Bayonne. The decrees 
for raising the new Conscriptions in France have in many 
placed failed of Execution, and that Country after having been 
twenty years the terror of Europe, appears now so destitute of 
all means of self-defence that it is falling almost without an 
effort of resistance into the hands of the coalesced Powers. As 
they have adopted among themselves one of the most inflam- 
matory of the Revolutionary heores, they have learnt from him 
to talk the language of the Revolution, and while they are 
carrying fire and the sword into the heart of France, they pro- 
claim themselves the best of all possible friends to the French 
People, and making the extermination of Bonaparte the great 
and only pretence for continuing the War. Denmark has been 
compelled to make her Peace, by the Cession of Norway to 
Sweden, in return for which she receives Swedish Pomerania. 
It is something like the exchange of armour between two of 
Homer's Heroes — a shield of brass for a shield of gold. Homer 
says that the one who gave the golden shield was struck at the 
moment with a fit of Folly. But his translator, Pope, makes 
it a fit of generosity. Denmark however in this transaction 
has to charge herself neither with folly nor generosity. Neces- 
sity, dire Necessity, has been her motive and must be her 
justification. She has been plundered for the benefit of 
Europe's Independence. " * * * * 

J. Q. A. to Thomas Boylston Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 24 January, 1814. 
* * * * * ''The Events of the last two years opened 
a new prospect to all Europe, and have discovered the glassy 
been acquired by Wisdom, it might have been consolidated 
by Time and the most ordinary portion of Prudence. The 
Emporer Napoleon says that he was never seduced by Pros- 
perity; but when he comes to be judged impartially by 
Posterity, that will not be their sentence. His Fortune will 
be among the Wonders of the age in which he has lived. His 
Military Talent and Genius will place him high in the Rank 
of Great Captains; but his intemperate Passion, his presump- 
tuous Insolence, and his Spanish and Russian Wars, will 
reduce him very nearly to the level of ordinary Men. At all 
Events he w^ill be one of the standing examples of human 
Vicissitude — ranged, not among the Alexanders, Caesars and 
Charlemains, but among the Hannibals, Pompeys and Charles 
the 12ths. I believe his Romance is drawing towards its close; 
and that he T\dll soon cease even to yield a pretext for the War 
against France. England alone will be ''afraid of the Gun- 
powder Percy, though he should be dead. "^2 

»* Henry iv. Part i, Act v, Scene 4. 



60 

J. Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 30 March, 1814. 
***** " From the continual chain of unexpected and 
unexampled success, which has been attending the British 
Cause in Arms, and in Negotiation from the hour that their 
War with us commenced, we have anything to anticipate but 
a spirit of concession in them. They have little to boast of 
in the progress of their War with us hitherto, but the chances 
of War have all turned up prizes to them everywhere else. 
France after having been twenty Years the Dictatress of Eu- 
rope has now in the course of two Campaigns been brought 
completely at the feet of those Enemies whom she had so often 
vanquished and so long oppressed. Six weeks ago an allied 
army of at least three hundred thousand men was within two 
days easy march of Paris, and by the latest Accounts received 
from thence, was again within the same distance, or nearer. 
In the interval they had met with some opposition which oc- 
casioned a momentary check upon their Operations, and a 
short retreat to concentrate their forces. There is little reason 
to doubt that they are at this moment in possession of Paris, 
and that the Empire of Napoleon is in the Paradise of Fools. 
While the Allies were in the Heart of France a Negotiation as 
hjrpocritical and fallacious as the Congress of Prague, was 
affected to be opened at Chatillon, without any intention per- 
haps on any side, certainly not on the side of the Allies, that 
it should result in a Peace. Their object is in giving Peace to 
France to make her at the same time a present of the Bour- 
bons, but even in the extremity to which France is reduced 
there have been very few and trifling manifestations of a dis- 
position in any part of her People to receive them. 

As I am in daily expectation of receiving the order to repair 
to Gothenburg, I may possibly be there as soon as this Letter, 
or be obliged to take it on there with me. It is now of the 
whole year the worst time for imdertaking the Journey, and 
the passage of the Gulph between this and Sweden will prob- 
ably for some weeks be impracticable. It is however very 
doubtful whether I shall be able to go before the breaking up 
of the Sea; in which case I shall endeavour to get a passage 
directly by Water. But the Navigation from hence is very 
seldom open before the first of June.'' * * * * 

J. Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams. 

St. Petersburg, 26 April, 1814. 
* * * * * "It was but yesterday that the official news 
of the taking of Paris by the allies was received and this Even- 
ing there is a splendid Illumination of this City for that Event. 



61 

The Emperor Alexander has proclaimed for himself and the 
allies that they will never treat again for Peace with Napoleon 
Bonaparte or any of his Family. That they will acknowledge 
and guarantee the Constitution which France shall give her- 
self; and will grant more favorable terms of Peace to her under 
Government than they would have done to Bonaparte. It 
is impossible to deny that this man has deserved his fate, and 
that no fate can be too severe for what he has deserved. The 
humiliation that he has so wantonly brought down upon this 
Nation may be a useful lesson to them, and a security for the 
rest of Europe. But I take no pleasure in witnessing the last 
Agonies of a Great Man, hunted to Death by Millions of little 
ones; nor in seeing a Nation like France forced to take a Con- 
stitution and a Sovereign at the dictate of her most inveterate 
Enemies. And I wait for some confirmation of fact, to judge 
in what the Moderation, the Generosity and the Magnanimity 
of the Allies towards France will terminate." 

J. Q. A. to Mrs. John Adams, 

Reval, 12 May, 1814. 
***** "The Coalition of all Europe against France 
has at length been crowned with complete success. The 
annals of the World do not I believe furnish an example of such 
a reverse of Fortune as that Nation has experienced within the 
last two years. The interposition o^ Providence to produce 
this mighty change has been so signal, so peculiar, so distinct 
from all human co-operation, that in ages less addicted to 
superstition than the present it might have been considered 
as miraculous. As a Judgment of Heaven, it will undoubtedly 
be considered by all pious Minds now and hereafter; and I 
cannot but indulge the Hope that it opens a Prospect of at 
least more Tranquility and Security to the civilized part of 
Mankind than they have enjoyed the last half Century. 
France for the last twenty-five Years has been the scourge of 
Europe; in every change of her Government she has manifested 
the same ambitious, domineering oppressive and rapacious 
Spirit to all her Neighbours. She has now fallen a wretched 
and helpless victim into their hands — dethroning the Sovereign 
she had chosen, and taking back the family she had expelled, 
at their command; and ready to be dismembered and parceled 
out as the Resentment or the Generosity of her Conquerors 
shall determine. The final Result is now universally, and in 
a great degree justly imputable to one Man. Had Napoleon 
Bonaparte, with his extraordinary Genius, and transcendent 
military talents, possessed an ordinary portion of Judgment 
or common Sense, France might have been for ages the pre- 
ponderating Power in Europe, and he might have transmitted 



62 

to his Posterity the most powerful Empire upon Earth, and a 
name to stand by the side of Alexander, Caesar and Charle- 
magne — A name surrounded by such a blaze of Glory as to 
blind the eyes of all humankind to the baseness of its origin 
and even to the blood with which it would still have been pol- 
luted. But if the Catastrophe is the work of one Man, it was 
the Spirit of the Times and of the Nation, which brought for- 
ward that Man, and concentrated in his person and character 
the whole issue of the Revolution. ''Oh! it is Sport, 
(says Shakespear) to see the Engineer hoist by his own petard. " 
The sufferings of Europe are compensated and avenged in the 
humiliation of France. It is now to be seen what use the 
avengers will make of their Victory. I place great reliance 
upon the Moderation, Equity, and Hmnanity of the Emperor 
Alexander, and I freely confess I have confidence in Nothing 
else. The allies of the Continent must be governed entirely 
by him, and as his resentments must be sufficiently gratified 
by the plenitude of his success and the irretrievable downfall 
of his Enemy, I hope and wish to believe that he has discerned 
the true path of Glory, open before him, and that he will 
prove inaccessible to all the interested views, and rancorous 
passions of his associates. The great danger of the present 
moment appears to me to be that the policy of crippling France 
to guard against her future power will be carried too far. Of 
the dispositions of England there can be no question; of those 
which will stimulate all the immediate neighbours of France 
there can be as little doubt; and France can have so little to 
say or to do for herself that she begins by taking the Sovereign 
who is to seal her doom from the hands of her Enemies. The 
real part for the Emperor Alexander now to perform is that of 
the Umpire and Arbitrator of Europe. To fill that part ac- 
cording to the exigency of the Times, he must forget that he 
has been the principal party to the War; he must lay aside 
all his own Passions, and resist all the instigations of his co- 
operators. He must discover the true Medium between the 
excess of liberality which would hazard the advantages of the 
present opportunity to circumscribe the power of France 
within bounds consistent with safety and tranquillity of her 
neighbours, and the excess of Caution, which the Jealousy 
of those neighbours, and perhaps his own would suggest, to 
secm-e them at all Events, by reducing France to a State of 
real Impotency; and thus leaving her future situation depend- 
ent upon their discretion. I have no doubt that the Emperor 
will see all this in the general principle; and I wait not without 
anxiety to observe its application to his measures. " * * * 



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